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DUKE 
UNIVERSITY 





DIVINITY SCHOOL 
LIBRARY 








Digitized by the Int 
in 2022 with fund 
Duke University Lil 


— 














eee a, Ge OF Se EL 


ACCORDING TO 


ST. MARK. 


BY THE VERY REV, 


G. A. CHADWICK, D.D., 
Dean of Armagh, 


AUTHOR OF “CHRIST BEARING WITNESS TO HIMSELF,” “aS HE THAT 
SEWETH,” BTC. 


NEW YORK: 
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, 





CONTERES. 


MARK, PAGE 


‘Chap, I. The Beginning of the Gospel, 1.—At the Jordan, 6. 
—The Temptation, 13.—The Early Preaching 
and the First Disciples, 17—Teaching with 
Authority, 20.—Miracles 24—The Demoniac, 
28.—A Group of Miracles, 34.—Jesus in Soli- 
tude, 38.—The Leper, 42 . : . . : I 


w» II. The Sick of the Palsy, 47——The Son of Man, 52.— 
The Call and Feast of Levi, 56—The Contro- 
versy concerning Fasting, 61.—The Sabbath, 66 47 


» Ill. The Withered Hand, 71.—The Choice of the Twelve, 
75.-—Characteristics of the Twelve, 80—The 
Apostle Judas, 88.—Christ and Beelzebub, gI. 
—‘ Eternal Sin,” 95.—The Friends of Jesus,99. 71 


» 1V. The Parables, 105.—The Sower, 110.—Lamp and 
Stand, 118.—The Seed growing secretly, IZ1.— 
The Mustard Seed, 126.—Feur Miracles, 129.-- 
The Two Storms, 133 ° 2 . . 2 105 


» V. The Demoniac of Gadara, 141.—The Men of 
Gadara, 148.—With Jairus, 151 . ° - I4I 


492013 


vi CONTENTS. 








MARK, PAGE 


Chap. VI. Rejected in His Own Country, 162—The Mission 
ot the Twelve, 167.—Herod, 170.—Bread in 
the Desert, 176.—Unwashen Hands, 184 . 162 


» VII. Things which Defile, 190—The Children and the 
Dogs, 195.—The Deaf-and-Dumb Man, 200 , 190 


» VIII. The Four Thousand, 205.—The Leaven ot the 
Pharisees, 208.—Men as Trees, 213.—The 
Confession and the Warning, 216,—The Re- 
buke of Peter, 221 . . . . ° « 205 


» 1X. The Transfiguration, 228.—The Descent from the 
Mount, 235.—The Demoniac Boy, 238.—Jesus 
and the Disciples, 247.—Offences, 254 . - 228 


= X. Divorce, 263.—Christ and Little Children, 268.— 
The Rich Inquirer, 274.—Who then can be 
Saved? 281.—Christ’s Cup and Baptism, 287. 
—The Law of Greatness, 292.—Bartimzeus, 


295 . . . . . . . . . 263 


» XI, The Triu:nphant Entry, 299.—The Barren Fig- 
tree, 303.—The Second Cleansing of the 
Temple, 307.—The Baptism of John, whence 
wasit? 310, . . ° ° ° + 299 


»  AII. The Husbandmen, 318.—The Tribute Money, 325. 
—Christ and the Sadducees, 330.—The Dis- 
cerning Scribe, 337.—David’s Lord, 341.— 
The Widow’s Mite, 343 . « ° ° 318 


CONTENTS. vii 


MARK. PAGE 


Chap. XIII. Things Perishing and Things Stable, 346—The 
Impending Judgment, 351 . . « © 346 


» XIV. The Cruse of Ointment, 359.—The Traitor, 364 
—The Sop, 370.—Bread and Wine, 374.— 
The Warning, 383.—In the Garden, 389.— 
The Agony, 393—The Arrest, 401.—Before 
Caiaphas, 406.—The Fall of Peter, 413. . 359 


eo XV. Pilate, 418.—Christ Crucified, 424——The Death 
of Jesus, 431 . . : . = A - 418 


e AVI. Christ Risen, 437.—The Ascension, 443 Oe 437 


492013 





CHAPTER I. 
THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL, 


**'The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
Even as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send My mes- 
senger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way; The voice of one 
crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make 
His paths straight; john came, who baptized in the wilderness and 
preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. And there 
went out unto him all the country of Judza, and all they of Jerusalem ; 
and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins, 
And John was clotied with camel’s hair, and had a leathern girdle about 
his loins, and did eat locusts and wild honey.” —MarkK i. 1-6 (R.V.). 


HE opening of St. Mark’s Gospel is energetic and 
full of character. St. Matthew traces for Jews 
the pedigree of their Messiah; St. Luke’s worldwide 
sympathies linger with the maiden who bore Jesus, and 
the village of His boyhood; and St. John’s theology 
proclaims the Divine origin of the Eternal Lord. But 
St. Mark trusts the public acts of the Mighty Worker 
to do for the reader what they did for those who first 
“beheld His glory.” How He came to earth can safely 
be left untold: what He was will appear by what He 
wrought. It is enough to record, with matchless vivid- 
ness, the toils, the energy, the love and wrath, the 
defeat and triumph of the brief career which changed 
the world. It will prove itself to be the career of “ the 
Son of God.” 
In so deciding, he followed the example of the 
Apostche teacning. The first vacant place among the 
I 


2 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR, 





Twelve was filled by an eye-witness, competent to tell 
what Jesus did ‘from the baptism of John to the day 
when He was received up,” the very space covered by 
this Gospel. That “ Gospel of peace,” which Cornelius 
heard from St. Peter (and hearing, received the Holy 
Ghost) was the same story of Jesus “after the baptism 
which John preached.” And this is throughout the 
substance of the primitive teaching. The Apostles act 
as men who believe that everything necessary to salva- 
tion is (implicit or explicit) in the history of those few 
crowded years. Therefore this is ‘‘ the gospel.” 

Men there are who judge otherwise, and whose gospel 
is not the story of salvation wrought, but the plan of 
salvation applied, how the Atonement avails for us, 
how men are converted, and what privileges they 
then receive. But in truth men are not converted 
by preaching conversion, any more than citizens are 
made loyal by demanding loyalty. Show men their 
prince, and convince them that he is gracious and truly 
royal, and they will die for him. Show them the Prince 
of Life, and He, being lifted up, will draw all men 
unto Him; and thus the truest gospel is that which 
declares Christ and Him crucified. As all science 
springs from the phenomena of the external world, so 
do theology and religion spring from the life of Him 
who was too adorable to be mortal, and too loving to 
be disobeyed. 

Therefore St. Paul declares that the gospel which he 
preached to the Corinthians and by which they were 
saved, was, that Christ died for our sins and was 
buried and rose again, and was seen of sufficient 
witnesses (1 Cor. xv. 1-8). 

And theretore St. Mark is contented with a very brief 
record of those wondrous years; a tew facts, chosen 


Marki.1-6.] THE BEGINN/ING OF THE GOSPEL. 3 





with a keen sense of the intense energy and burning 
force which they reveal, are what he is inspired to call 
the gospel. 

He presently uses the word in a somewhat larger 
sense, telling how Jesus Himself, before the story of 
His life could possibly be unfolded, preached as “ the 
gospel of God” that “the time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand,” and added (what St. 
Mark only has preserved for us), “ Repent, and believe 
in the gospel” (i. 14-15). So too it is part of St. 
Paul’s “gospel” that God shall judge the secrets of men 
by Jesus Christ” (Rom. ii, 16). For this also is good | 
news of God, “the gospel of the kingdom.” And like 
“the gospel of Jesus Christ,” it treats of His attitude 
toward us, more than ours toward Him, which latter is 
the result rather than the substance of it. That He 
rules, and not the devil ; that we shall answer at last to 
Him and to none lower; that Satan lied when he 
claimed to possess all the kingdoms of the earth, and to 
dispose cf them; that Christ has now received from far 
different hands “all power on earth”; this is a gospel 
which the world has not yet learned to welcome, nor 
the Church fully to proclaim. 

Now the scriptural use of this term is quite as im- 
portant to religious emotion as to accuracy of thought. 
All true emotions hide their fountain too deep for self- 
consciousness to find. We feel best when our feeling 
is forgotten. Not while we think about finding peace, 
but while we approach God asa Father, and are anxious 
for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication 
with thanksgiving make known our requests, is it 
promised that the peace of God which passeth all 
understanding shall guard our hearts and our thuoug! ts 
(Phil. iv. 7). And many a soul of the righteous, wucm 


4 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








faith in the true gospel fills with trembling adoration, is 
made sad by the inflexible demand for certain realised 
personal experiences as the title to recognition as a 
Christian. That great title belonged at the first to all 
who would learn of Jesus: the disciples were called 
Christians. To acquaint ourselves with Him, that is 
to be at peace. 

Meantime, we observe that the new movement which 
now begins is not, like Judaism, a law which brings 
death ; nor like Buddhism, a path in which one must 
walk as best he may: it differs from all other systems 
in being essentially the announcement of good tidings 
from above. 

Yet “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” : 
is a profound agitation and widespread alarm. Lest the 
soothing words of Jesus should blend like music with 
the slumber of sinners at ease in Zion, John came 
preaching repentance, and what is more, a baptism of 
repentance ; not such a lustration as was most familiar 
to the Mosaic law, administered by the worshipper to 
himself, but an ablution at other hands, a confession 
that one is not only soiled, but soiled beyond all 
cleansing of his own. Formal Judaism was one long 
struggle for self-purification. The dawn of a new 
system is visible in the movement of all Judzea towards 
one who bids them throw every such hope away, and 
come to him for the baptism of repentance, and expect 
a Greater One, who shall baptize them with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire. And the true function of the 
predicted herald, the best levelling of the rugged ways 
of humanity for the Promised One to traverse, was in 
this universal diffusion of the sense of sin. For Christ 
was not come to call the righteous, but sinners to 
1epentance. 


Marki.1-6.] ZHE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL. 5 





In truth, the movement of the Baptist, with its 
double aspect, gathers up all the teaching of the past. 
He produced conviction, and he promised help. One 
lesson of all sacred history is universal failure. The 
innocence of Eden cannot last. The law with its 
promise of life to the man who doeth these things, 
issued practically in the knowledge of sin; it entered 
that sin might abound; it made a formal confession of 
universal sin, year by year, continually. And there- 
fore its fitting close was a baptism of repentance 
universally accepted. Alas, not universally. For 
while we read of all the nation swayed by one im- 
pulse, and rushing to the stern teacher who had no 
share in its pleasures or its luxuries, whose life was 
separated from its concerns, and whose food was the 
simplest that could sustain existence, yet we know that 
when they heard how deep his censures pierced, and 
how unsparingly he scourged their best loved sins, the 
loudest professors of religion rejected the counsel of 
God against themselves, being not baptized of Him. 
Nevertheless, by coming to Him, they also had pleaded 
guilty. Something they needed; they were sore at 
heart, and would have welcomed any soothing balm, 
although they refused the surgeon’s knife. 

The law did more than convict men ; it inspired hope. 
The promise of a Redeemer shone like a rainbow 
across the dark story of the past. He was the end of 
all the types, at once the Victim and the Priest. To 
Him gave all the prophets witness, and the Baptist 
brought all past attainment to its full height, and was 
“more than a prophet” when he anncunced the actual 
presence of the Christ, when he pointed out to the first 
two Apostles, the Lamb of God. 


6 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





AT THE JORDAN. 


** And he preached, saying, There cometh after me He that is mightier 
than J, the Jatchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and 
unloose. I baptized you with water; but He shall baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came 
from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. 
And straightway coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens rent 
asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon Him: and a voice 
came out of the heavens, Thou art My Beloved Son, in Thee I am 
well pleased.” —MakkK i. 7-11 (R.V.). 


Ir was when all men mused in their hearts whether 
John was the Christ or no, that he announced the 
coming of a Stronger One. By thus promptly silencing 
a whisper, so honourable to himself, he showed how 
strong he really was, and how unselfish ‘‘a friend ot 
the Bridegroom.” Nor was this the vague humility of 
phrase which is content to be lowly in general, so long 
as no specified individual stands higher. His word is 
definite, and accepts much for himself. ‘ The Stronger 
One than I cometh,” and it is in presence of the might 
of Jesus (whom yet this fiery reformer called a Lamb), 
that he feels himself unworthy to bend to the dust and 
unbind the latchets or laces of his shoe. 

So then, though asceticism be sometimes good, it is 
consciously not the highest nor the most effective 
goodness. Perhaps it is the most impressive. With- 
out a miracle, the preaching of John shook the nation 
as widely as that of Jesus melted it, and prepared 
men’s hearts for His. A king consulted and feared 
him. And when the Pharisees were at open feud with 
Jesus, they feared to be stoned if they should pronounce 
John’s baptism to be of men. 

Yet is there weakness lurking even in the very 


Mark i 7-11.] AT THE JORDAN. 7 


——— 





quality which gives asceticism its power. That stern 
seclusion from an evil world, that peremptory denial 
of its charms, why are they so impressive? Because 
they set an example to those who are hard beset, of 
the one way of escape, the cutting off of the hand and 
foot, the plucking out of the eye. And our Lord 
enjoins such mutilation of the life upon those whom 
its gifts betray. Yet is it as the halt and maimed that 
such men enter into life. The ascetic is a man who 
needs to sternly repress and deny his impulses, who 
is conscious of traitors within his breast that may 
revolt if the enemy be suffered to approach too near. 

It is harder to be a holy friend of publicans and 
sinners, a witness for God while eating and drinking 
with these, than to remain in the desert undefiled. It 
is greater to convert a sinful woman in familiar con- 
verse by the well, than to shake trembling multitudes 
by threats of the fire for the chaff and the axe for the 
barren tree. And John confessed this. In the supreme 
moment of his life, he added his own confession to that 
of all his nation. This rugged ascetic had need to be 
baptized of Him who came eating and drinking. 

Nay, he taught that all his work was but superficial, 
a baptism with water to reach the surface of men's life, 
to check, at the most, exaction and violence and 
neglect of the wants of others, while the Greater One 
should baptize with the Holy Ghost, should pierce 
the depths of human nature, and throughly purge His 
floor. 

Nothing could refute more clearly than our three 
simple narratives, the sceptical notion that Jesus 
yielded for awhile to the dominating influence of the 
Baptist. Only from the Gospels can we at all connect 
the two. And what we read here is, that before Jesus 


8 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





came, John expected his Superior ; that when they met, 
John declared his own need to be baptized of Him, 
that he, nevertheless, submitted to the will of Jesus, 
and thereupon heard a voice from the heavens which 
must for ever have destroyed all notion of equality ; that 
afterwards he only saw Jesus at a distance, and made 
a confession which transferred two of his disciples to 
our Lord. 

The criticism which transforms our Lord’s part in 
these events to that of a pupil is far more wilful than 
would be tolerated in dealing with any other record. 
And it too paipably springs from the need to find some 
human inspiration for the Word of God, some candle 
from which the Sun of Righteousness took fire, if one 
would escape the confession that He is not of this 
world. 

But here we meet a deeper question: Not why Jesus 
accepted baptism from an inferior, but why, being sin- 
less, He sought for a baptism of repentance. How is 
this act consistent with absolute and stainless purity ? 

Now it sometimes lightens a difficulty to find that it 
is not occasional nor accidental, but wrought deep into 
the plan of a consistent work. And the Gospels are 
consistent in representing the innocence of Jesus as 
refusing immunity from the consequences of guilt. He 
was circumcised, and His mother then paid the offering 
commanded by the law, although both these actions 
spoke of defilement. In submitting to the likeness of 
sinful flesh He submitted to its conditions. He was 
present at feasts in which national confessions led up 
to sacrifice, and the sacrificial blood was sprinkled to 
make atonement for the children of Israel, because of 
all their sins. When He tasted death itself, which 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, He 


Mark i. 7-11.] AT THE JORDAN. 6 


carried out to the utmost the same stern rule to which 
at His baptism He consciously submitted. Nor will 
any theory of His atonement suffice, which is content 
with believing that His humiliations and sufferings, 
though inevitable, were only collateral results of con- 
tact with our fallen race. Baptism was avoidable, and 
that without any compromise of His influence, since the 
Pharisees refused it with impunity, and John would 
fain have exempted Him. Here at least He was not 
“entangled in the machinery,” but deliberately turned 
the wheels upon Himself. And this is the more im- 
pressive because, in another aspect of affairs, He 
- claimed to be out of the reach of ceremonial defile- 
ment, and touched without reluctance disease, leprosy 
and the dead. 

Humiliating and penal consequences of sin, to these 
He bowed His head. Yet to a confession of personal 
taint, never. And all the accounts agree that He never 
was less conscience-stricken than when He shared the 
baptism of repentance. St. Matthew implies, what St. 
Luke plainly declares, that He did not come to baptism 
along with the crowds of penitents, but separately. 
And at the point where all others made confession, in 
the hour when even the Baptist, although filled with 
the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb, had need to 
be baptized, He only felt the propriety, the fitness of 
fulfilling all righteousness. That mighty task was not 
even a yoke to Hin, it was an instinct like that of 
beauty to an artist, it was what became Him. 

St. Mark omits even this evidence of sinlessness. 
His energetic method is like that of a great commander, 
who seizes at all costs the vital point upon the battle 
field. He constantly omits what is subordinate 
(although very conscious of the power of graphic 


10 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





details), when by so doing he can force the central 
thought upon the mind. Here he concentrates_our 
attention upon the witness from above, upon the rend- 
ing asunder of the heavens which unfold all their 
heights over a bended head, upon the visible descent 
of the Holy Spirit in His fulness, upon the voice from 
the heavens which pealed through the souls of these 
two peerless worshippers, and proclaimed that He who 
had gone down to the baptismal flood was no sinner 
’ to be forgiven, but the beloved Son of God, in whom 
He is well pleased. 

That is our Evangelist’s answer to all misunder- 
standing of the rite, and it is enough. 

How do men think of heaven? Perhaps only as a 
remote point in space, where flames a material and 
solid structure into which it is the highest bliss to 
enter. A place there must be to which the Body 
of our Lord ascended and whither He shall yet lead 
home His followers in spiritual bodies to be with Him 
where He is. If, however, only this be heaven, we 
should hold that in the revolutions of the solar system 
it hung just then vertically above the Jordan, a few 
fathoms or miles aloft. But we also believe in a 
spiritual city, in which the pillars are living saints, 
an all-embracing blessedness and rapture and depth of 
revelation, whereinto holy mortals in their highest 
moments have been ‘‘caught up,” a heaven whose 
angels ascend and descend upon the Son of man, In 
this hour of highest consecration, these heavens were 
thrown open—rent asunder—for the gaze of our Lord 
and of the Baptist. They were opened again when the 
first martyr died. And we read that what eye hath 
not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived of the 
preparation of God for them that love Him, He hath 


Mark i. 7-11.] AT THE JORDAN. Ir 


already revealed to them by His Spirit. To others 
there is only cloud or “the infinite azure,” as to the 
the crowd bythe Jordan and the murderers of Stephen. 

Now it is to be observed that we never read of Jesus 
being caught up into heaven for a space, like St. Paul 
or St. John. What we read is, that while on earth the 
Son of man is in Heaven (John iii. 13),* for heaven is 
the manifestation of God, whose truest glory was re- 
vealed in the grace and truth of Jesus. 

Along with this revelation, the Holy Spirit was mani- 
fested wondrously, His appearance, indeed, is quite 
unlike what it was to others. At Pentecost He became 
visible, but since each disciple received only a portion, 
‘“‘according to his several ability,” his fitting symbol 
was “tongues parting asunder like as of fire.” He 
came as an element powerful and pervasive, not as 
a Personality bestowed in all His vital force on any 
one. 

So, too, the phrase which John used, when predicting 
that Jesus should baptize with the Holy Ghost, slightly 
though it differs from what is here, implies 7 that 
only a portion is to be given, not the fulness. And 
the angel who foretold to Zacharias that John himself 
should be filled with the Holy Ghost, conveyed the 
same limitation in his words. John received all that 
he was able to receive: he was filled. But how should 
mortal capacity exhaust the fulness of Deity? And 
Who is this, upon Whom, while John is but an awe- 
stricken beholder, the Spirit of God descends in all 
completeness, a living organic unity, like a dove? Only 
the Infinite is capable of receiving such a gift, and this 


* Cf. the admirable note in Archdeacon Watkins’ ‘Commentary on 
ohn.” 
+ By the absence of the article in the Greek. 


12 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


is He in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the God- 
head bodily. No wonder then that “in bodily form” 
as a dove, the Spirit of God descended upon Him 
alone. Henceforward He became the great Dispenser, 
and “the Spirit emanated from Him as perfume from 
the rose when it has opened.” 

At the same time was heard a Voice from heaven. 
And the bearing of this passage upon the Trinity 
becomes clear, when we combine the manifestation of 
the Spirit in living Personality, and the Divine Voice, 
not from the Dove but from the heavens, with the 
announcement that Jesus is not merely beloved and 
well-pleasing, but a Son, and in this high sense the 
only Son, since the words are literally “ Thou art the 
Son of Me, the beloved.” And yet He is to bring many 
sons unto glory. 

Is it consistent with due reverence to believe that 
this voice conveyed a message to our Lord Himself? 
Even so liberal a critic as Neander has denied this. 
But if we grasp the meaning of what we believe, that 
He upon taking flesh “emptied Himself,” that He in- 
creased in wisdom during His youth, and that there 
was a day and hour which to the end of life He knew 
not, we need not suppose that His infancy was so 
unchildlike as the realisation of His mysterious and 
awful Personality would make it. There must then 
have been a period when His perfect human develop- 
ment rose up into what Renan calls (more accurately 
than he knows) identification of Himself with the object 
of His devotion, carried to the utmost limit. Nor is 
this period quite undiscoverable, for when it arrived it 
would seem highly unnatural to postpone His public 
ministry further. Now this reasonable inference is 
entirely supported by the narrative. St. Matthew 


Mark i. 12, 13.] THE TEMPTATION. 13 





indeed regards the event from the Baptist’s point of 
vision. But St. Mark and St. Luke are agreed that 
to Jesus Himself it was also said, ‘‘ Thou art My 
beloved Son.” Now this is not the way to teach us 
that the testimony came only to John. And how 
solemn a thought is this, that the full certitude of His 
destiny expanded before the eyes of Jesus, just when 
He lifted them from those baptismal waters in which 
He stooped so low. 


THE TEMPTATION. 


** And straightway the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness. 
And He was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan: and He 
was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto Him.”— 


Mark i, 12, 13 (R.V.). 


St. Marx has not recorded the details of our Lord’s 
temptations, and lays more stress upon the duration 
of the struggle, than the nature of the last and crown- 
ing assaults. But he is careful, like the others, to 
connect it closely with the baptism of Jesus, and the 
miraculous testimony then borne to Him. 

It is indeed instructive that He should have suffered 
this affront, immediately upon being recognised as the 
Messiah. But the explanation will not be found in 
the notion, which Milton has popularised, that only 
now Satan was assured of the urgent necessity for 
attacking Him: 


§*That heard the adversary . . . and with the voice Divine 
Nigh thundergtruck, the exalted Man, to whom 
Such high attest was given, awhile surveyed 
With wonder.” 
As if Satan forgot the marvels of the sacred infancy. 
As if the spirits who attack all could have failed to 


idertify, after thirty years of defeat, the Greater One 


14 GOSVEL OF ST. MARK, 


whom the Baptist had everywhere proclaimed. No, 
But Satan admirably chose the time for a supreme 
effort. High places are dizzy, and especially when 
one has just attained them; and therefore it was when 
the voice of the herald and the Voice from the 
heavens were blended in acclaim, that the Evil One 
tried all his arts. He had formerly plunged Elijah 
into despair and a desire to die, immediately after fire 
from heaven responded to the prophet’s prayer. Soon 
after this, he would degrade Peter to be his mouth- 
piece, just when his noblest testimony was borne, and 
the highest approval of his Lord was won. In the 
flush of their triumphs he found his best opportunity ; 
but Jesus remained unflushed, and met the first 
recorded temptation, in the full consciousness of Mes- 
siahship, by quoting the words which spoke to every 
man alike, and as man. 

It is a lesson which the weakest needs to learn, for 
little victories can intoxicate little men. 

It is easy then to see why the recorded temptations 
insist upon the exceptional dignity of Christ, and urge 
Him to seize its advantages, while He insists on 
bearing the common burden, and proves Himself 
greatest by becoming least of all. The sharp contrast 
between His circumstances and His rank drove the 
temptations deep into His consciousness, and wounded 
His sensibilities, though they failed to shake His 
will. 

How unnatural that the Son of God should lack and 
suffer hunger, how right that He should challenge 
recognition, how needful (though now His sacred 
Personality is cunningly allowed to fall somewhat into 
the background) that He should obtain armies and 
splendour, 


Mark i. 12, 13.] THE TEMPTATION. 15 


This explains the possibility of temptation in a sin- 
less nature, which indeed can only be denied by 
assuming that sin is part of the original creation. Not 
because we are sinful, but because we are flesh and 
blood (of which He became partaker), when we feel 
the pains of hunger we are attracted by food, at 
whatever price it is offered. In truth, no man is 
allured by sin, but only by the bait and bribe of sin, 
except perhaps in the last stages of spiritual decom- 
position. : 

Now, just as the bait allures, and not the jaws of 
the trap, so the power of a temptation is not its 
wickedness, not the guilty service, but the proffered 
recompense; and this appeals to the most upright 
man, equally with the most corrupt. Thus the stress 
of a temptation is to be measured by our gravitation, 
not towards the sin, but towards the pleasure or 
advantage which is entangled with that. And this 
may be realised even more powerfully by a man of 
keen feeling and vivid imagination who does not falter, 
than by a grosser nature which succumbs. 

Now Jesus was a perfect man. To His exquisite 
sensibilities, which had neither inherited nor contracted 
any blemish, the pain of hunger at the opening of His 
ministry, and the horror of the cross at its close, were 
not less intense, but sharper than to ours. And this 
pain and horror measured the temptation to evade 
them. The issue never hung in the scales; even ta 
hesitate would have been to forfeit the delicate bloom 
of absolute sinlessness ; but, none the less, the decision 
was costly, the temptation poignant. 

St. Mark has given us no details; but there is 
immense and compressed power in the assertion, only 
his, that the temptation lasted all through the forty 


16 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





days. We know the power of an unremitting pressure, 
an incessant importunity, a haunting thought. <A very 
trifling annoyance, long protracted, drives men to 
strange remedies. And the remorseless urgency of 
Satan may be measured by what St. Matthew tells us, 
that only after the forty days Jesus became aware of 
the pains of hunger. Perhaps the assertion that He 
was with the wild beasts may throw some ray of light 
upon the nature of the temptation. There is no in- 
timation of bodily peril. On the other hand it seems 
incredible that what is hinted is His own consciousness 
of the supernatural dignity from which 
“The fiery serpent fled, and noxious worm 3 
The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof.” 

Such a consciousness would have relieved the strain 
of which their presence is evidently a part. Nay, 
but the oppressive solitude, the waste region so unlike 
His blooming Nazareth, and the ferocity of the brute 
creation, all would conspire to suggest those dread 
misgivings and questionings which are provoked by 
“the something that infects the world.” 

Surely we may believe that He Who was tempted 
at all points like as we are, felt now the deadly chill 
which falls upon the soul from the shadow’ of our 
ruined earth. In our nature He bore the assault and 
overcame. And then His human nature condescended 
to accept help, such as ours receives, from the minis- 
tering spirits which are sent forth to minister to them 
that shall be heirs of salvation. So perfectly was He 
made like unto His brethren, 


Mark i. 14-20.] EARLY PREACHING. 17 


— +. 








THE EARLY PREACHING AND THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 


““Now after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee 
preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe in the gospel. And 
passing along by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew the 
brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishers. And 
Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me, and I will make you to be- 
come fishers of men. And straightway they left the nets, and followed 
Him. And going on alittle further, He saw James the son of Zebedee, 
and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending the nets. And 
straightway He called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the boat 
with the hired servants, and went after Him.”—Mark i. 14-20 (R.V.). 


St. Marx has shown us the Baptist proclaiming Christ. 
He now tells us that when John was imprisoned, 
Jesus, turning from that Judean ministry which 
stirred the jealousy of John’s disciples (John iii. 26), 
“came into Galilee, preaching.” And one looks twice 
before observing that His teaching is a distinct advance 
upon the herald’s. Men are still to repent; for how- 
ever slightly modern preachers may heal the hurt of 
souls, real contrition is here taken over into the gospel 
scheme. But the time which was hitherto said to 
be at hand is now fulfilled. And they are not only 
to believe the gospel, but to ‘‘ believe in it.” Reliance, 
the effort of the soul by which it ceases equally to be 
self-confident and to despair, confiding itself to some 
word which is a gospel, or some being who has 
salvation to bestow, that is beliefin its object. And 
it is highly important to observe that faith is thus 
made prominent so early in our Lord’s teaching. The 
vitalizing power of faith was no discovery of St. Paul; 
it was not evolved by devout meditation after Jesus 
had passed from view, nor introduced into His system 
when opposition forced Him to bind men to Him ina 
2 


18 GOSPEL OF ST. MAPK, 





stronger allegiance. The power of faith is implied in 
His eailiest preaching, and it is connected with His 
earliest miracles. But no such phrase as the power of 
faith is ever used. Faith is precious only as it leans 
on what is trustworthy. And it is produced, not by 
thinking of faith itself, but of its proper object. There- 
fore Christ did not come preaching faith, but preaching 
the gospel of God, and bidding men believe in that. 

Shall we not follow His example? It is morally 
certain that Abraham never heard of salvation by faith, 
yet he was justified by faith when he believed in Him 
Who justifieth the ungodly. To preach Him, and His 
gospel, is the way to lead men to be saved by faith. 

Few things are more instructive to consider than 
the slow, deliberate, yet firm steps by which Christ 
advanced to the revelation of God in flesh. Thirty 
years of silence, forty days of seclusion after heaven 
had proclaimed Him, leisurely intercourse with Andrew 
and John, Peter and Nathanael, and then a brief 
ministry in a subject nation, and chiefly in a despised 
province. It is not the action of a fanatic. It exactly 
fulfils His own description of the kingdom which He 
proclaimed, which was to exhibit first the blade, then 
the ear, then the full corn in the ear. And it is a 
lesson to all time, that the boldest expectations possible 
to faith do not justify feverish haste and excited long- 
ings for immediate prominence or immediate success, 
The husbandman who has long patience with the seed 
is not therefore hopeless of the harvest. 

Passing by the sea of Galilee, Jesus finds two fisher= 
men at their toil, and bids them follow Him. Both are 
men of decided and earnest character; one is to become 
the spokesman and leader of the Apostolic band, and 
the little which is recorded of the other indicates the 


Mark i. 14-20.] VIARLY PREACHING. 19 





same temperament, somewhat less developed. Our 
Lord now calls upon them to take a decided step. But 
here again we find traces of the same deliberate pro- 
gression, the same absence of haste, as in His early 
preaching. He does not, as unthinking readers fancy, 
come upon two utter strangers, fascinate and arrest them 
in a moment, and sweep their lives into the vortex of His 
own. Andrew had already heard the Baptist proclaim 
the Lamb of God, had followed Jesus home, and had in- 
troduced his brother, to whom Jesus then gave the new 
name Cephas. Their faith had since been confirmed by 
miracles. The demands of our Lord may be trying, but 
they are never unreasonable, and the faith He claims is 
not a blind credulity. 

Nor does He, even now, finally and entirely call 
them away from their occupation. Some time is still 
to elapse, and a sign, especially impressive to fisher- 
men, the miraculous draught of fishes, is to burn into 
their minds a profound sense of their unworthiness, 
before the vocation now promised shall arrive. Then 
He will say, From henceforth ye shall catch men: now 
He says, I will prepare you for that future, I will make 
you to become fishers of men. So ungrounded is the 
suspicion of any confusion between the stories of the 
three steps by which they rose to their Apostleship. 

A little further on, He finds the tw sons of Zebedee, 
and calls them also. John had almost certainly been 
the companion of Andrew when he followed Jesus 
home, and his brother had become the sharer of his 
hopes. And if there were any hesitation, the example 
of their comrades helped them to decide—so soon, so 
inevitably does each disciple begin to be a fisher of other 
men—and leaving their father, as we are gracefully told, 
not desolate, but with servants, they also follow Jesus. 


20 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Thus He asks, from each group, the sacrifice involved 
in following Him at an inconvenient time. The first 
are casting their nets and eager in their quest. The 
others are mending their nets, perhaps after some large 
draught had broken them. So Levi was sitting at the 
receipt of toll. Not one of the Twelve was chosen 
to that high rank when idle. 

Very charming, very powerful still is the spell by 
which Christ drew His first apostles to His side. 
Not yet are they told anything of thrones on which 
they are to sit and judge the tribes of Israel, or that 
their names shall be engraven on the foundations of 
the heavenly city besides being great on earth while 
the world stands. For them, the capture of men was 
less lucrative than that of fish, and less honourable, 
for they suffered the loss of all things and were made 
' as the filth of the earth. To learn Christ's art, to be 
made helpful in drawing souls to Him, following Jesus 
and catching men, this was enough to attract His first 
ministers; God grant that a time may never come 
when ministers for whom this is enough, shall fail. 
Where the spirit of self devotion is absent how can 
the Spirit of Christ exist ? 


TEACHING WITH AUTHORITY. 


“And they go into Capernaum ; and straightway on the sabbath 
day He entered into the synagogue and taught. And they were aston- 
ished at His teaching: for He taught them as having authority, and 
not as the scribes.” —MARK i. 21, 22 (R.V.). 


Tue worship of the synagogues, not having been 
instituted by Moses, but gradually developed by the 
public need, was comparatively free and unconven- 
tional. Sometimes it happened that remarkable and 


Mark i. 21,22.) TEACHING WITH AUTHORITY. 21 
serious-looking strangers were invited, if they had any 
word of exhortation, to say on (Acts xiii. 15). Some- 
times one presented himself, as the custom of our Lord 
was (Luke iv. 16). Amid the dull mechanical ten- 
dencies which were then turning the heart of Judaism 
to stone, the synagogue may have been often a centre 
of life and rallying-place of freedom. In Galilee, where 
such worship predominated over that of the remote 
Temple and its hierarchy, Jesus found His trusted 
followers and the nucleus of the Church. In foreign 
lands, St. Paul bore first to his brethren in their syna- 
gogues the strange tidings that their Messiah had 
expired upon a cross. And before His rupture with 
the chiefs of Judaism, the synagogues were fitting 
places for our Lord’s early teaching. He made use of 
the existing system, and applied it, just as we have 
seen Him use the teaching of the Baptist as-a starting- 
point for His own. And this ought to be observed, that 
Jesus revolutionized the world by methods the furthest 
from being revolutionary. The institutions of His age 
and land were corrupt well-nigh to the core, but He 
did not therefore make a clean sweep, and begin again. 
He did not turn His back on the Temple and synagogues, 
nor outrage sabbaths, nor come to destroy the law and 
the prophets. He bade His followers reverence the 
seat where the scribes and Pharisees sat, and drew the 
line at their false lives and perilous examples. Amid 
that evil generation He found soil wherein His seed 
might germinate, and was content to hide His leaven 
in the lump where it should gradually work out its 
destiny. In so doing He was at one with Providence, 
which had slowly evolved the convictions of the Old 
Testament, spending centuries upon the process. Now 
the power which belongs to such moderation has 


22 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





scarcely been recognised until these latter days. The 
political sagacity of Somers and Burke, and the eccle- 
siastical wisdom of our own reformers, had their occult 
and unsuspected fountains in the method by which 
Jesus planted the kingdom which came not with obser- 
vation. But who taught the Carpenter? It is there- 
fore significant that all the Gospels of the Galilean 
ministry connect our Lord’s early teaching with the 
synagogue. 

St. Mark is by no means the evangelist of the dis- 
courses. And this adds to the interest with which we 
find him indicate, with precise exactitude, the first 
great difference that would strike the hearers of Christ 
between His teaching and that of others, He taught 
with authority, and not as the scribes. Their doc- 
trine was built with dreary and irrational ingenuity, 
upon perverted views of the old law. The shape 
of a Hebrew letter, words whereof the initals would 
spell some important name, wire-drawn inferences, 
astounding allusions, ingenuity such as men waste now 
upon the number of the beast and the measurement of 
a pyramid, these were the doctrine of the scribes. 

And an acute observer would remark that the authority 
of Christ’s teaching was peculiar in a farther-reaching 
sense. If, as seems clear, Jesus said, ‘‘ Ye have heard 
that it hath been said” (not “by,” but) ‘to them 
of old time, but I say unto you,” He then claimed the 
place, not of Moses who heard the Divine Voice, but of 
Him Who spoke. Even if this could be doubted, the 
same spirit is elsewhere unmistakable. The tables 
which Moses brought were inscribed by the finger of 
Another: none could make him the Supreme arbitrator 
while overhead the trumpet waxed louder and louder, 
while the fiery pillar marshalled their journeying, while 


Marki. 21,22.1 TEACHING WITH AUTHORITY. 23 


the mysterious Presence consecrated the mysterious 
shrine. Prophet after prophet opened and closed his 
message with the words, “ [hus saith the Lord.” . . . 
“For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Jesus 
was content with the attestation, ‘“ Verily, I say unto 
you.” Blessed as a wise builder was the hearer and doer 
of ‘these words of Mine.” Everywhere in His teaching 
the centre of authority is personal. He distinctly recog- 
nises the fact that He is adding to the range of the 
ancient law of respect for human life, and for purity, 
veracity and kindness. But He assigns no authority 
for these additions, beyond His own. Persecution by 
all men is a blessed thing to endure, if it be for His 
sake and the gospel’s. Now this is unique. Moses 
or Isaiah never dreamed that devotion to himself took 
rank with devotion to his message. Nor did St. Paul. 
But Christ opens His ministry with the same pretensions 
as at the close, when others may not be called Rabbi, 
nor Master, because these titles belong to Him. 

And the lapse of ages renders this “authority” of 
Christ more wonderful than at first. The world bows 
down before something other than His clearness of 
logic or subtlety of inference. He still announces where 
others argue, He reveals, imposes on us His supre- 
macy, bids us take His yoke and learn. And we still 
discover in His teaching a freshness and profundity, 
a universal reach of application and yet an unearthli- 
ness .of aspect, which suit so unparalleled a claim. 
Others have constructed cisterns in which to store 
truth, or aqueducts to convey it from higher levels. 
Christ is Himself a fountain; and not only so, but the 
water which He gives, when received aright, becomes 
in the faithful heart a well of water springing up in 
new, inexha istible developments. 


24 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





MIRACLES, 


“ And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an ume 
clean spirit.” —Makk i. 23 (R.V.). 


WE have just read that Christ’s teaching astonished 
the hearers. He was about to astonish them yet 
more, for we have now reached the first miracle which 
St. Mark records. With what sentiments should such 
a narrative be approached? The evangelist connects 
it emphatically with Christ’s assertion of authority. 
Immediately upon the impression which His manner 
of teaching produced, straightway, there was in the 
synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And upon 
its expulsion, what most impressed the people was, 
that as He taught with authority, so “ with authority 
He commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they 
obey Him.” 

Let us try whether this may not be a providential 
clue, to guide us amid the embarrassments which 
beset, in our day, the whole subject of miracles. 

A miracle, we are told, is an interference with the 
laws of nature; and it is impossible, because they are 
fixed and their operation is uniform. But these bold 
words need not disconcert any one who has learned 
to ask, In what sense are the operations of nature 
uniform? Is the operation of the laws which govern 
the wind uniform, whether my helm is to port or star- 
board? Can I not modify the operation of sanitary 
laws by deodorization, by drainage, by a thousand 
resources of civilization? The truth is, that while 
natural laws remain fixed, human intelligence pro- 
foundly modifies their operation. How then will the 
objector prove that no higher Being can as naturally 


Mark i. 23.] MIRACLES. 25 


do the same? He answers, Because the sum total 
of the forces of nature is a fixed quantity: nothing 
can b¢ added to that sum, nothing taken. from it: 
the energy of all our machinery existed ages ago in 
the heat of tropical suns, then in vegetation, and ever 
since, though latent, in our coal beds; and the claim 
to add anything to that total is subversive of modern 
science. But again we ask, If the physician adds 
nothing to the sum of forces when he banishes one 
disease by inoculation, and another by draining a 
marsh, why must Jesus have added to the sum of 
forces in order to expel a demon or to cool a fever? 
It will not suffice to answer, because His methods are 
contrary to experience. Beyond experience they are. 
But so were the marvels of electricity to our parents 
and of steam to theirs. The chemistry which analyses 
the stars is not incredible, although thirty years ago 
its methods were “contrary” to the universal experi- 
ence of humanity. Man is now doing what he never 
did before, because he is a more skilful and better 
informed agent than he ever was. Perhaps at this 
moment, in the laboratory of some unknown student, 
some new force is preparing to amaze the world. But 
the sum of the forces of nature will remain unchanged. 
Why is it assumed that a miracle must change them ? 
Simply because men have already denied God, or at 
least denied that He is present within His world, as 
truly as the chemist is within it. If we think of Him 
as interrupting its processes from without, laying upon 
the vast machine so powerful a grasp as to arrest its 
working, then indeed the sum of forces is disturbed, 
and the complaints of science are justified. This may, 
or it may not, have been the case in creative epochs, 
of which science knows no more than of the beginning 


26 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


of life and of consciousness. But it has nothing to say 
against the doctrine of the miracles of Jesus. For this 
doctrine assumes that God is ever present in His uni- 
verse ; that by Him all things consist; that He is not 
far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move 
and have our being, although men may be as uncon- 
scious of Him as of gravitation and electricity. When 
these became known to man, the stability of law was un- 
affected. And it isa wild assumption that if a supreme 
and vital force exist, a living God, He cannot make His 
energies visible without affecting the stability of law. 

Now Christ Himself appeals expressly and repeatedly 
to this immanent presence of God as the explanation 
of His “ works.” 

“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” “ The 
Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things 
that Himself doeth.” ‘I, by the finger of God, cast out 
devils.” 

Thus a miracle, even in the Old Testament, is not 
an interruption of law by God, but a manifestation of 
God who is within nature always; to common events 
it is as the lightning to the cloud, a revelation of the 
electricity which was already there. God was made 
known, when invoked by His agents, in signs from 
heaven, in fire and tempest, in drought and pestilence, 
a God who judgeth. These: are the miracles of God 
interposing for His people against their foes. But the 
miracles of Christ are those of God carrying forward 
to the uttermost His presence in the world, God mani- 
fest in the flesh. They are the works of Him in Whom 
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 

And this explains what would otherwise be so per- 
plexing, the esseutially different nature of His miracles 
from those of the Old Testament. Infidelity pretends 


Mark i. 23.] MIRACLES. 27 


that those are the models on which myth or legend 
formed the miracles of Jesus, but the plain answer is 
that they are built on no model of the kind. The 
difference is so great as to be startling. 

Tremendous convulsions and visitations of wrath are 
now unknown, because God is now reconciling the 
world unto Himself, and exhibiting in miracles the pre- 
sence of Him Who is not far from every one of us, His 
presence in love to redeem the common life of man, and 
to bless, by sharing it. Therefore His gifts are homely, 
they deal with average life and its necessities, bread 
and wine and fish are more to the purpose than that 
man should eat angels’ food, the rescue of storm-tossed 
fishermen than the engulfment of pursuing armies, the 
healing of prevalent disease than the plaguing of Egypt 
or the destruction of Sennacherib. 

Such a Presence thus manifested is the consistent 
doctrine of the Church. It is a theory which men may 
reject at their own peril if they please. But they must 
not pretend to refute it by any appeal to either the 
uniformity of law or the stability of force. 

Men tell us that the divinity of Jesus was an after- 
thought ; what shall we say then to this fact, that men 
observed from the very first a difference between the 
manner of His miracles and all that was recorded in 
their Scriptures, or that they could have deemed fit ? 
It is exactly the same peculiarity, carried to the highest 
pitch, as they already felt in His discourses. They are 
wrought without any reference whatever to a superior 
will. Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall 
I do? Elijah said, Hear me O Lord, hear me. But 
Jesus said, I will. . . I charge thee come out... 1 
am able to do this. And so marked is the change, that 
even His followers cast out devils in His name, and 


28 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





say not, Where is the Lord God of Israel ? but, In the 
Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. His power is 
inherent, it is self-possessed, and His acts in the 
synoptics are only explained by His words in St. John, 
“What things soever the Father doeth, these the Son 
also doeth in like manner.” No wonder that St. Mark 
adds to His very first record of a miracle, that the 
people were amazed, and asked, What is this ? a new 
teaching! with authority He commandeth even the 
unclean spirits and they do obey Him! It was 
divinity which, without recognising, they felt, implicit 
in His bearing. No wonder also that His enemies 
strove hard to make Him say, Who gave Thee this 
authority ? Nor could they succeed in drawing from 
Him any sign from heaven. The centre and source 
of the supernatural, for human apprehension, has 
shifted itself, and the vision of Jesus is the vision of 
the Father also, 


THE DEMONIAC, 


** And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an 
unclean spirit ; and he cried out, saying, What have we to do with 
Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? art Thou come to destroy us? I 
know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked 
him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And the unclean 
spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. And 
they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among them- 
selves, saying, What is this? a new teaching! with authority He com- 
mandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him. And the 
report of Him went out straightway everywhere into all the region of 
Galilee round about.’”—MARK i. 23-28 (R.V ). 


WE have seen that belief in the stability of natural law 
does not forbid us to believe in miracles. 


Special objections are urged, however, against the 
belief in d-moniacal possession. The very existence of 


Mark i. 23-28.] THE DEMONIAC. 2g 





demons is declared to be inconsistent with the omni- 
potence of God, or els: with His goodness. 

And it may be granted that abstract reasoning in 
an ideal world, thought moving in a vacuum, would 
scarcely evolve a state of things so far removed from 
the ideal. This, however, is an argument against the 
existence, not of demons, but of evil in any shape. It 
is the familiar insoluble problem of all religions, How 
can evil exist in the universe of God? And it is 
balanced by the insoluble problem of all irreligious 
systems: In a universe without God, how can either 
good or evil exist, as distinguished from the advan- 
~tageous and the unprofitable? Whence comes the un- 
questionable difference between a lie and a bad bargain? 

But the argument against evil spirits professes to be 
something more than a disguised reproduction of this 
abstract problem. What more is it? What is gained 
by denying the fiends, as long as we cannot deny the 
fiends incarnate—the men who take pleasure in un- 
righteousness, in the seduction and ruin of their 
fellows, in the infliction of torture and outrage, in the 
ravage and desolation of nations ? Such freedom has 
been granted to the human will, for even these 
ghastly issues have not been judged so deadly as 
coercion and moral fatalism. What presumption can 
possibly remain against the existence of other beings 
than men, who have fallen yet farther? If, indeed, 
it be certainly so much farther. For we know that 
men have lived, not outcasts from society, but boastful 
sons of Abraham, who willed to perform the lusts 
{ras éwiOupias) of their father the devil. Now since we 
are not told that the wickedness of demons is infinite,* 


_* The opposite is asserted by the fact that one demon may ally 
himself with seven others worse. 


30 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





but only that it is abysrial, and since we know that 
abysses of wickedness do actually exist, what sort of 
vindication of Deity is this which will believe that 
such gulfs are yawning only in the bosom of man ? 

It alarms and shocks us to think that evil spirits 
have power over the human mind, and still more that 
such power should extend, as in cases of possession, 
even to the body. Evil men, however, manifestly wield 
such power. “They got rid of the wicked one,” said 
Goethe, “ but they could not get rid of the wicked ones.” 
Social and intellectual charm, high rank, the mysterious 
attraction of a strong individuality, all are employed 
at times to mislead and debase the shuddering, reluc- 
tant, mesmerised wills of weaker men and women. And 
then the mind acts upon the body, as perhaps it always 
does. Drunkenness and debauchery shake the nerves. 
Paralysis and lunacy tread hard on the footsteps of 
excess. Experience knows no reason for denying that 
when wickedness conquers the soul it will also deal 
hardly with the body. 

But we must not stop here. For the Gospels do not 
countenance the popular notion that special wickedness 
was the cause of the fearful wretchedness of the pos- 
sessed. Young children suffered. Jesus often cautioned 
a sufferer to sin no more lest worse results should follow 
than those He had removed; but He is never known to 
have addressed this warning to demoniacs. They suffered 
trom the tyranny of Satan, rather than from his seduc- 

> (Ribecleobthe nelacesaeiiaaie credible so frightful 
an cutrage upon human nature, are the wrongs done 
by despots and mobs, by invading armies and persecut- 
ing religionists. Yet people who cannot believe that 
a demon could throw a child upon the fire, are not 
incredulous of Attila, Napoleon, and the Inquisition. 


Mark i. 23-28.] THE DEMONIAC. 31 


Thus it appears that such a narrative need startle 
no believer in God, and in moral good and evil, who 
considers the unquestionable facts of life. And how 
often will the observant Christian be startled at the 
wild insurrection and surging up of evil thought and 
dark suggestions, which he cannot believe to be his own, 
which will not be gainsaid nor repulsed. How easily 
do such experiences fall in with the plain words of Scrip- 
ture, by which the veil is drawn aside, and the mystery 
of the spiritual world laid bare. Then we learn that 
man is not only fallen but assaulted, not only feeble but 


enslaved, not only a wandering s but led captive 
—hy_the devil at_his will. 


We turn to the narrative before us. They are still 
wondering at our Lord’s authoritative manner, when 
“straightway,” for opportunities were countless until 
unbelief arose, a man with an unclean spirit attracts 
attention. We can only conjecture the special meaning 
of this description. A recent commentator assumes 
that “like the rest, he had his dwelling among the 
tombs: an overpowering influence had driven him 
away from the haunts of men.” (Canon Luckock, i 
Joco). To others this feature in the wretchedness of the 
Gadarene may perhaps seem rather to be exceptional, 
the last touch in the appalling picture of his misery. 
It may be that nothing more outrageous than morbid 
gloom or sullen mutterings had hitherto made it neces- 
sary to exclude this sufferer from the synagogue. Or 
the language may suggest that he rushed abruptly in, 
driven by the frantic hostility of the fiend, or impelled 
by some mysterious and lingering hope, as the de- 
moniac of Gadara ran to Christ. 

What w2 know is that the sacred Presence provoked 
a crisis. There is an unbelief which never can be 


32 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





silent, never wearies railing at the faith, and there is a 
corruption which resents goodness and hates it as a 
personal wrong. So the demons who possessed men 
were never able to confront Jesus calmly. They 
resent His interference ; they cry out; they disclain 
having anything to do with Him ; they seem indignauit 
that He should come to destroy them who have 
destroyed so many. There is something weird and 
unearthly in the complaint. But men also are wont to 
forget their wrong doing when they come to suffer, and 
it is recorded that even Nero had abundance of com- 
passion for himself. Weird also and terrible is it, that 
this unclean spirit should choose for his confession that 
pure and exquisite epithet, the Holy One of God. The 
phrase only recurs in the words of St. Peter, ‘‘ We have 
believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of 
God” (John vi. 69, R. V.). Was it not a mournful 
association of ideas which then led Jesus to reply, 
“‘ Have I not chosen you the Twelve, and one of you is 
a devil?*” But although the phrase is beautiful, and 
possibly ‘‘ wild with all regret,” there is no relenting, 
no better desire than to be “let alone.” And so Jesus, 
so gentle with sinful men, yet sometime to be their 
judge also, is stern and cold. ‘‘ Hold thy peace—be 
muzzled,” He answers, as to a wild beast, “and come 
out of him.” Whereupon the evil spirit exhibits at 
once his ferocity and his defeat. Tearing and scream 
ing, he came out, but we read in St. Luke that he did 
the man no harm. 

And the spectators drew the proper inference. A 
new power implied a new revelation. Something far- 


* The connection would be almost certain if the word ‘‘ devil” were 
alike in both. But in all these narratives it is “demon,” there being in 
Scripture but one devil. 


Mark i. 23-28.] THE DEMONTIAC. 33 


reaching and profound might be expected from Him 
who commanded even the unclean spirits with authority, 
and was obeyed. 

It is the custom of unbelievers to speak as if the air 
of Palestine were then surcharged with belief in the 
supernatural. Miracles were everywhere. Thus they 
would explain away the significance of the popular belief 
that our Lord wrought signs and wonders. But in so 
doing they set themselves a worse problem than they 
evade. If miracles were so very common, it would be 
as easy to believe that Jesus wrought them as that He 
worked at His father’s bench. But also it would be as 
inconclusive. And how then are we to explain the 
astonishment which all the evangelists so constantly 
record? On any conceivable theory, these writers 
shared the beliefs of that age. And so did the readers 
who accepted their assurance that all were amazed, and 
that His report “ went out straightway everywhere into 
all the region of Galilee.” These are emphatic words, 
and both the author and his readers must have con- 
. sidered a miracle to be more surprising than modern 
critics believe they did. 

Yet we do not read that any one was converted by 
this miracle. All were amazed, but wonder is not self- 
surrender. They were content to let their excitement 
die out, as every violent emotion must, without any 
change of life, any permanent devotion to the new 
Teacher and His doctrine. 


34 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





4 GROUP OF MIKACLES, 


“* And straightway, when they were come out of the synagogue, they 
came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 
Now Simon's wife’s mother lay sick of a fever ; and straightway they tell 
Him of her: and He came and took her by the hand, and raised her 
up; and the fever left her, and she ministered unto them. And at 
even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were 
sick, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city was 
gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were sick 
with divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and He suffered not 
the devils to speak, because they knew Him.” —Mark i. 29-34 (R.V.). 


St. Matruew tells us that on leaving the synagogue 
they entered into Peter's house. St. Mark, with his 
peculiar sources of information, is aware that Andrew 
shared the house with his brother. 

Especial interest attaches to the mention of the 
mother-in-law of Peter, as proving that Jesus chose a 
married man to be an apostle, the very apostle from 
whom the celibate ministry of Rome professes to have 
received the keys. The evidence does not stand alone. 
When St. Paul’s apostolic authority was impugned, he 
insisted that he had the same right to bring with him > 
in his travels a believing wife, which Peter exercised. 
And Clement of Alexandria tells us that Peter's wife 
acted as his coadjutor, ministering to women in their 
own homes, by which means the gospel of Christ 
penetrated without scandal the privacy of women’s 
apartments. Thus the notion of a Zenana mission is 
by no means modern. 

The mother of such a wife is afflicted by fever of a 
kind which still haunts that district. ‘And they tell 
Him of her.” Doubtless there was solicitude and hope 
in their voices, even if desire did not take the shape of 
formal prayer. We are just emerging from that early 


Mark i. 29-34. 4 GROUP OF MIRACLES. 35 


period when belief in His power to heal might still be 
united with some doubt whether free application might 
be made to Him. His disciples might still be as 
unwise as those modern theologians who are so busy 
studying the miracles as a sign that they forget to 
think of them as works of love. Any such hesitation 
was now to be dispelled for ever. 

It is possible that such is the meaning of the ex- 
pression, and if so, it has a useful lesson. Sometimes 
there are temporal gifts which we scarce know whether 
we should pray for, so complex are our feelings, so en- 
tangled our interests with those of others, so obscure 
and dubious the springs which move our desire. Is it 
presumptuous to ask? Yet can it be right to keep 
anything back, in our communion with our Father ? 

Now there is a curious similarity between the ex- 
pression “they tell Jesus of her” and that phrase 
which is only applied to prayer when St. Paul bids us 
pray for all that is in our hearts. “In nothing be 
anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication 
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known 
unto God.” So shall the great benediction be fulfilled: 
“The peace of God which passeth all understand- 
ing, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts” 
(Phil. iv. 6, 7). All that is unholy shall be purified, all 
that is unwise subdued, all that is expedient granted. 

If this be indeed the force of St. Mark’s phrase, Jesus 
felt their modest reticence to be a strong appeal, for 
St. Luke says “they besought Him,” while St. Matthew 
merely writes that He saw her lying. The ‘“ Inter- 
preter of St. Peter” is most likely to have caught the 
exact shade of anxiety and appeal by which her friends 
drew His attention, and which was indeed a prayer. 

The gentle courtesy of our Lord’s healings cannot be 


36 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


too much studied by those who would know His mind 
and love Him. Never does He fling a careless blessing 
as coarse benefactors fling their alms ; we shall here- 
after see how far He was from leaving fallen bread to 
be snatched as by a dog, even by one who would have 
welcomed a boon thus contemptuously given to her; 
and in the hour of His arrest, when He would heal 
the ear of a persecutor, His courtesy appeals to those 
who had laid hold on Him, “ Suffer ye thus far.” Thus 
He went to this woman and took her by the hand and 
raised her up, laying a cool touch upon her fevered 
palm, bestowing His strength upon her weakness, 
healing her as He would fain heal humanity. For at 
His touch the disease was banished; with His impulse 
her strength returned. 

We do not read that she felt bound thereupon to 
become an obtrusive public witness to His powers: that 
was not her function ; but in her quiet home she failed 
not to minister unto Him who had restored her powers. 
Would that all whose physical powers Jesus renews 
from sickness, might devote their energies to Him. 
Would that all for whom He has calmed the fever of 
earthly passion, might arise and be energetic in His 
cause. 

Think of the wonder, the gladness and gratitude of 
their humble feast. But if we felt aright the sickness 
of our souls, and the grace which heals them, equal 
gratitude would fill our lives as He sups with us and 
we with Him. 

Tidings of the two miracles have quickly gone 
abroad, and as the sum sets, and the restraint of the 
sabbath is removed, all the city gathers all the sick 
around His door. 

Now here is a curious example of the peril of press- 


Mark i. 29-34-] A GROUP OF MIRACLES. 37 


ing too eagerly our inferences from the expressions of 
an evangelist. St. Mark tells us that they brought 
“all their sick and them that were possessed with 
devils. And He healed” (not all, but) ‘‘ many that were 
sick, and cast out many devils.” How easily we might 
distinguish between the “all” who came, and the 
“many” who were healed. Want of faith would 
explain the difference, and spiritual analogies would 
be found for those who-remained unhealed at the feet 
of the good Physician. These lessons might be very 
edifying, but they would be out of place, for St. 
Matthew tells us that He healed them all. 

But who can fail to contrast this universal movement, 
the urgent quest of bodily health, and the willingness 
of friends and neighbours to convey their sick to Jesus, 
with our indifference to the health of the soul, and our 
neglect to lead others to the Saviour. Disease being 
the cold shadow of sin, its removal was a kind of 
sacrament, an outward and visible sign that the Healer 
of souls was nigh. But the chillness of the shadow 
afflicts us more than the pollution of the substance, 
and few professing Christians lament a hot temper as 
sincerely as a fever. 

As Jesus drove out the demons, He suffered them 
not to speak because they knew Him. We cannot 
believe that His rejection of their impure testimony was 
prudential only, whatever possibility there may have 
been of that charge of complicity which was afterwards 
actually brought. Any help which might have come to 
Him from the lips of hell was shocking and revolting 
to our Lord. And this is a lesson for all religious and 
political partisans who stop short of doing evil them- 
selves, but reject no advantage which the evil deeds 
of others may bestow. Not so cold and negative is the 


38 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 











morality of Jesus. He regards as contamination what- 
ever help fraud, suppressions of truth, injustice, by 
whomsoever wrought, can yield. He rejects them by 
an instinct of abhorrence, and not only because shame 
and dishonour have always befallen the purest cauce 
which stooped to unholy alliances. 

Jesus that day showed Himself powerful alike in the 
congregation, in the home, and in the streets, and over 
evil spirits and physical disease alike, 


JESUS IN SOLITUDE. 


** And in the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went 
out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed. And Simon 
and they that were with him followed after Him ; and they found Him, 
and say unto Him, All are seeking Thee. And He saith unto them, 
Let us go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also ; 
for to this end came I forth. And He went into their synagogues 
throughout all Galilee, and preaching casting out devils.”—MarkK i. 


35-39 (R.V.). 


St. Mark is pre-eminently the historian of Christ's 
activities. From him chiefly we learn to add to 
our thought of perfect love and gentleness that of One 
whom the zeal of God’s house ate up. But this 
evangelist does not omit to tell us by what secret 
fountains this river of life was fed; how the active 
labours of Jesus were inspired in secret prayers. Too 
often we allow to one side of religion a development 
which is not excessive, but disproportinate, and we are 
punished when contemplation becomes nerveless, or 
energy burns itself away. 

After feeding the five thousand, St. Mark tells us 
that Jesus, while the storm gathered over His disciples 
on the lake, went up into a mountainto pray. And St. 
Luke tells of a whole night of prayer before choosing 


Mark i. 35-39-] JESUS IN SOLITUDE. 39 


His disciples, and how it was to pray that He climbed 
the mountain of transfiguration. 

And we read of Him going into a desert place with 
His disciples, and to Olivet, and oft-times resorting 
to the garden where Judas found Him, where, in the 
dead of night, the traitor naturally sought Him. 

Prayer was the spring of all His energies, and His 
own saying indicated the habit of His mortal life as 
truly as the law of His mysterious generation: “I live 
by the Father.” 

His prayers impress nothing on us more powerfully 
than the reality of His manhood. He, Who possesses 
all things, bends His knees to crave, and His prayers are 
definite, no empty form, no homage without sense of 
need, no firing of blank cartridge without an aim. He 
asks that His disciples may be with Him where He is, 
that Simon’s strength may fail not, that He may Him- 
self be saved from a dreadful hour. ‘“ Such touches” 
said Godet “ do not look like an artificial apotheosis of 
Jesus, and they constitute a striking difference between 
the gospel portrait and the legendary caricature.” 

The entire evening had been passed in healing the 
diseases of the whole town; not the light and careless 
bestowal of a boon which cost nothing, but wrought 
with so much sympathy, such draining of His own 
vital forces, that St. Matthew found in it a fulfilment 
of the prophecy that He should Himself bear our 
sicknesses. And thus exhausted, the frame might 
have been forgiven for demanding some indulgence, 
some prolongation of repose. 

But the course of our Lord’s ministry was now 
opening up before Him, and the hindrances becoming 
visible. How much was to be hoped from the great 
impression already made ; how much to be feared frorr 


49 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





the weakness of His followers, the incipient envy ef 
priest and Pharisee, and the volatile excitability of the 
crowd. At sucha time, to relieve His burdened heart 
with Divine communion was more to Jesus than repose, 
as, at another time, to serve Him was meat to eat, 
And therefore, in the still fresh morning, long before 
the dawn, while every earthly sight was dim but the 
abysses of heaven were vivid, declaring without voice, 
amid the silence of earth’s discord, the glory and the 
handiwork of His Father, Jesus went into a solitary 
place and prayed. 

What is it that makes solitude and darkness dreadful 
to some, and oppressive to very many ? 

Partly the sense of physical danger, born of help- 
lessness and uncertainty. This He never felt, who 
knew that He must walk to-day and to-morrow, and on 
the third day be perfected. And partly it is the weight 
of unwelcome reflection, the searching and rebukes of 
memory, fears that come of guilt, and inward dis- 
tractions of a nature estranged from the true nature of 
the universe. Jesus was agitated by no inward dis- 
cords, upbraided by no remorse. And He had probably 
no reveries; He is never recorded to soliloquise; 
solitude to Him was but another name for communion 
with God His Father; He was never alone, for God 
was with Him. 

This retirement enabled Him to remain undisturbed 
until His disciples found Him, long after the crowds 
had besieged their dwelling. They had not yet learned 
how all true external life must rest upon the hidden life 
of devotion, and there is an accent of regret in the 
words, “ All are seeking Thee,” as if Jesus could neglect 
in self-culture any true opportunity for service. 

The answer, noteworthy in itself, demands especial 


Marki. 35-39.] JESUS IN SOLITUDE. 4t 


attention in these times of missions, demonstrations, 
Salvation Armies, and other wise and unwise attempts 
to gather excited crowds around the cross. 

Mere sensation actually repelled Jesus. Again and 
again He charged men not to make Him known, in places 
where He would stay; while in Gadara, which He had to 
leave, His command to the demoniac was the reverse. 
Deep and real convictions are not of kin with sight- 
seeing and the pursuit of wonders. Capernaum has 
now heard His message, has received its full share of 
physical blessing, is exalted unto heaven. Those who 
were looking for redemption knew the gospel, and 
Jesus must preach it in other towns also. Therefore, 
and not to be the centre of admiring multitudes, came 
He forth from His quiet home. 

Such is the sane and tranquil action of Jesus, in face 
of the excitement caused by His many miracles. Now 
the miracles themselves, and all that depends on them, 
are declared to be the creation of the wildest fanaticism, 
either during His lifetime or developing His legend 
afterwards. And if so, we have here, in the action of 
human mind, the marvel of modern physicists, ice 
from a red-hot retort, absolute moderation from a dream 
of frenzy. And this paradox is created in the act of 
“explaining” the miracles. The explanation, even 
were it sustained by any evidence, would be as difficult 
as any miracle to believe, 


42 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





THE LEPER. 


* And there cometh to Him a leper, beseeching [Iim, and kneeling 
down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make 
me clean. And being moved with compassion, He stretched forth His 
hand, and touched him, and saith wnto him, I will; be thou made 
clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was 
made clean. And He strictly charged him, and straightway sent him 
out, and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go 
thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing the 
things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he 
went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad the matter, 
insomuch that Jesus could nr» more openly enter into a city, but was 
without in desert places : and they came to Him froin every quarter.”— 
MARK i. 40-45 (R. V.). 


THE disease of leprosy was peculiarly fearful to a Jew. 
In its stealthy beginning, its irresistible advance, 
the utter ruin which it wrought from the blood out- 
ward untiu the flesh was corroded and fell away, it 
was a fit type of sin, at first so trivial in its indica- 
tions, but gradually usurping all the nature and 
corrupting it. And the terrible fact, that the children 
of its victims were also doomed, reminded the Israelite 
of the transmission of the taint of Adam. 

The story of Naaman and that of Gehazi make it 
almost certain that the leprosy of Scripture was not 
contagious, for they were intimate with kings. But, 
apparently to complete the type, the law gave to it 
the artificial contagion of ceremonial uncleanness, and 
banished the unhappy sufferer from the dwellings of 
«ven. Thus he came to be regarded as under an especial 
ban, and the prophecy which announced that the 
‘iiustrious Man of Sorrows would be esteemed “stricken 
of God,” was taken to mean that He should be a leper, 
This banishment of the leper was indeed a remark- 


=o @ 
eu * 


Mark i. 40-45.] THE LEPER. 43 





able exception to the humanity of the ancient law, 
but when his distress began to be extreme, and ‘‘the 
plague was turned into white,” he was released from 
his uncleanness (Lev. xiii. 17). Aud this may teach 
us that sin is to be dreaded most while it is yet 
insidious ; when developed it gives a sufficient warning 
against itself. And now such a sufferer appeals to 
Jesus. The incident is one of the most pathetic in the 
Gospel; and its graphic details, and the shining cha- 
racter which it reveals, make it very perplexing to 
moderate and thoughtful sceptics. 

‘Those who believe that the charm of His presence 
was ‘worth all the resources of medicine,” agree that 
Christ may have cured even leprosy, and insist that 
this story, as told by St. Mark, “must be genuine.” 
Others suppose that the leper was already cured, and 
Jesus only urged him to fulfil the requirements of the 
law. And why not deny the story boldly? Why 
linger so longingly over the details, when credence is 
refused to what is plainly the mainspring of the whole, 
the miraculous power of Jesus? The answer is plain. 
Honest minds feel the touch of a great nature; the 
misery of the suppliant and the compassion of his 
Restorer are so vivid as to prove themselves; no 
dreamer of a myth, no process of legend-building, ever 
wrought after this fashion. But then, the misery and 
compassion being granted, the whole story is practically 
conceded. It only remains to ask, whether the ‘“ pre- 
sence of the Saintly Man” could work a chemical 
change in tainted blood. For it must be insisted that 
the man was “full of leprosy,” and not, as one sug- 
gests, already far advanced towards cure. The contrast 
between his running and kneeling at the very feet 
of Jesus, and the conduct of the ten lepers, not yet 


44 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





released from their exclusion, who stood afar off while 
they cried out (Luke xvii. 12), is sufficient evidence 
of this, even if the express statement of St. Luke 
were not decisive. 

Repulsive, and until now despairing, only tolerated 
among men through the completeness of his plague, 
this man pushes through the crowd which shrinks from 
him, kneels in an agony of supplication, and says “ If 
Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” If Thou wilt! 
The cruelty of man has taught him to doubt the heart, 
even though satisfied of the power of Jesus. Ina few 
years, men came to assume the love, and exult in the 
reflection that He was “able to keep what ‘ was’ com- 
mitted to Him,” “able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think.” It did not occur to 
St. Paul that any mention of His will was needed. 

Nor did Jesus Himself ask a later suppliant, “ Be- 
lievest thou that I am willing,” but “ Believest thou 
that I am able to do this ?” 

But the charm of this delightful incident is the 
manner in which our Lord grants the impassioned 
prayer. We might have expected a shudder, a natural 
recoil from the loathsome spectacle, and then a 
wonder-working word. But misery which He could 
relieve did not repel Jesus; it attracted Him. His 
impulse was to approach. He not only answered “I 
will,”—and deep is the will to remove all anguish in the 
wonderful heart of Jesus,—but He stretched forth an 
unshrinking hand, and touched that death in life. It 
is a parable of all His course, this laying of a clean 
hand on the sin of the world to cleanse it. At His 
touch, how was the morbid frame thrilled with delight- 
ful pulses of suddenly renovated health, And how 
‘vas the despairing, joyless heart, incredulous of any 


Mark i. 40-45.] THE LEPER. 48 


real will to help him, soothed and healed by the pure 
delight of being loved. 

This is the true lesson of the narrative. St. Mark 
treats the miraculous cure much more lightly than the 
tender compassion and the swift movement to relieve 
suffering. And He is right. The warm and generous 
nature revealed by this fine narrative is what, as we have 
seen, most impresses the doubter, and ought most to 
comfort the Church. For He is the same yesterday and 
to-day. And perhaps, if the divinity of love impressed 
men as much as that of power, there would be less 
denial of the true Godhead of our Lord. 

The touch of a leper made a Jew unclean. And 
there is a surprising theory, that when Jesus could no 
more openly enter into a city, it was because the leper 
had disobediently published what implied His cere- 
monial defilement. As if our Lord were one to violate 
the law by stealth. 

But is it very remarkable that Christ, Who was born 
under the law, never betrayed any anxiety about clean- 
ness. The law of impurity was in fact an expression 
of human frailty. Sin spreads corruption far more 
easily than virtue diffuses purity. The touch of good- 
ness fails to reproduce goodness. And the prophet 
Haggai has laid stress upon this contrast, that bread 
or pottage or wine or oil or any meat will not become 
holy at the touch of one who bears holy flesh in the skirt 
of his garment, but if one that is unclean by a dead 
body touch any of these, it shall be unclean (ii. 12, 13). 
Our hearts know full well how true to nature is the 
ordinance, 

But Christ brought among us a virtue more con- 
tagious than our vices are, being not only a living soul, 
but a life-imparting Spirit. And thus He lays His 


46 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. ) 


hand upon this leper, upon the bier at Nain, upon the 
corpse of the daughter of Jairus, and as fire is 
kindled at the touch of fire, so instead of pollution to 
Him, the pureness of healthful life is imparted to the 
defiling and defiled. 

And His followers also are to possess a religion that 
is vitalizing, to be the light of the world, and the salt 
of the earth. 

If we are thus to further His cause, we must not 
only be zealous but obedient. Jesus strictly charged 
the leper not to fan the flame of an excitement which 
already impeded His work. But there was an invalu- 
able service which he might render : the formal registra- 
tion of his cure, the securing its official recognition by 
the priests, and their consent to offer the commanded 
sacrifices. In many a subsequent controversy, that 
‘testimony unto them” might have been embarrassing 
indeed. But the leper lost his opportunity, and put 
them upon their guard. And as through his impulsive 
clamour Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, 
but even in desert places was beset by excited crowds, 
so is He deprived to-day of many a tranquil ministra- 
tion and lowly service, by the zeal which despises 
order and quiet methods, by the undisciplined and 
ill-judged demonstiations of men and women whom He 
has blessed, 


CHAPTER II. 
7HE SICK OF THE PALSY. 


“And when He entered again into Capernaum after some days, 
it was noised that He was in the house.”—Mark ii. r (R.V.). 


-F ESUS returns to Capernaum, and an eager crowd 
blocks even the approaches to the house where He 
is known to be. St. Mark, as we should expect, 

relates the course of events, the multitudes, the in- 

genious device by which a miracle is obtained, the 
claim which Jesus advances to yet greater authority 
than heretofore, and the impression produced. But 

St. Luke explains that there were “sitting by,” 

having obtained the foremost places which they loved, 

Pharisees and doctors of the law from every village of 

Galilee and Judzea, and from Jerusalem itself. And 

this concourse, evidently preconcerted and unfriendly, 

explains the first murmurs of opposition recorded by 

St. Mark. It was the jealousy of rival teachers which 

so readily pronounced Him a blasphemer. 

The crowds besieged the very passages, there was no 
room, no, not around the door, and even if one might 
struggle forward, four men bearing a litter might well 
despair. But with palsied paralysis at stake, they 
would not be repulsed. They gained the roof by an 
outer staircase, such as the fugitives from Jerusalem 
should hereafter use, not going through the house. 


48 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


Then they uncovered and broke up the roof, by which 
strong phrases St. Mark means that they first lifted 
the tiles which lay in a bed of mortar or mud, broke 
through this, and then tore up the poles and light 
rafters by which all this covering was supported. 
Then they lowered the sick man upon his pallet, in 
front of the Master as He taught, 

It was an unceremonious act. However carefully 
performed, the audience below must have been not only 
disturbed but inconvenienced, and doubtless among 
the precise and unmerciful personages in the chief 
seats there was many an angry glance, many a murmur, 
many a conjecture of rebukes presently to be inflicted 
on the intruders. 

But Jesus never in any circumstances rebuked for 
intrusion any suppliant. And now He discerned the 
central spiritual impulse of these men, which was 
not obtrusiveness nor disrespect. They believed that 
neither din while He preached, nor rubbish falling 
among His audience, nor the strange interruption of a 
patient and a litter intruded upon His discourse, could 
weigh as much with Jesus as the appeal on a sick 
man’s face. And this was faith. These peasants may 
have been far enough from intellectual discernment of 
Christ's Personality and the scheme of salvation. 
They had however a strong and practical conviction 
that He would make whole their palsied friend. 

Now the preaching of faith is suspected of endanger- 
ing good works. But was this persuasion likely to 
make these men torpid ? Is it not plain that all 
‘spiritual apathy comes not from over-trust but from 
unbelief, either doubting that sin is present death, or 
else that holiness is life, and that Jesus has a gift to 
bestow, not in heaven, but promptly, which is better to 


Mark ii. 9.] THE SICK OF THE PALSY. 49 


gain than all the world? Therefore salvation is linked 
with faith, which earns nothing but elicits all, like the 
touch that evokes electricity, but which no man sup- 
poses to have made it. 

Because they knew the curse of palsy, and believed 
in a present remedy, these men broke up the roof to 
come where Jesus was. They won their blessing, but 
not the less it was His free gift. 

Jesus saw and rewarded the faith of all the group. 
The principle of mutual support and co-operation is 
the basis alike of the family, the nation, and the 
Church. Thus the great Apostle desired obscure and 
long-forgotten men and women to help together with 
him in their prayers. And He who visits the sins of 
the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
generation, shows mercy unto many more, unto thou- 
sands, in them that love Him. What a rebuke is ail 
this to men who think it enough that they should do no 
harm, and live inoffensive lives. Jesus now bestowed 
such a blessing as awoke strange misgivings among 
the bystanders. He divined the true burden of that 
afflicted heart, the dreary memories and worse fears 
which haunted that sick bed,—and how many are even 
now preparing such remorse and gloom for a bed of 
pain hereafter!—and perhaps He discerned the con- 
sciousness of some guilty origin of the disease. Cer- 
tainly He saw there one whose thoughts went beyond 
his malady, a yearning soul, with hope glowing like 
red sparks amid the ashes of his self-reproach, that a 
teacher so gracious as men reported Jesus, might bring 
with Him a gospel indeed. We know that he felt thus, 
for Jesus made him of good cheer by pardon rather 
than by healing, and spoke of the cure itself as 
wrought less for his sake than as evidence. 

4 


50 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


. 








Surely that was a great moment when the wistful 
gaze of eyes which disease had dimmed, met the eyes 
which were as a flame of fire, and knew that all its 
sullied past was at once comprehended and forgiven. 

Jesus said to him, “ Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” 
The term of endearment was new to his lips, and very 
emphatic ; the same which Mary used when she found 
Him in the temple, the same as when He argued that 
even evil men give good gifts unto their children. 
Such a relation towards Himself He recognised in this 
afflicted penitent. On the other hand, the dry argumen- 
tative temper of the critics is well expressed by the short 
crackling unemotional utterances of their orthodoxy: 
“Why doth this man thus speak? He blasphemeth. 
Who can forgive sins but one, God.” There is no zeal 
in it, no passion for God’s honour, no spiritual insight, 
it is as heartless as a syllogism. And in what follows 
a fine contrast is implied between their perplexed ortho- 
doxy, and Christ's profound discernment. For as He 
had just read the sick man’s heart, so He “ perceived 
in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves.” 
And He asks them the searching question, ‘‘ Whether 
is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, 
Arise and walk ?” Now which is really easier? It is 
not enough to lay all the emphasis upon “to say,” as 
if with Jesus the ease of an utterance depended on the 
difficulty of testing it. There is indeed a certain irony 
in the question. They doubtless imagined that Jesus 
was evading their scrutiny by only bestowing what 
they could not test. To them forgiveness seemed more 
easily offered than a cure. To the Christian, it is less 
to heal disease, which is a mere. consequence, than sin, 
which is the source of all our woes. ‘lo the power of 
Jesus they were alike, and connected with each other 


Mark. ii. 9.] THE SICK OF THE PALSY. Sr 


as the symptom and the true disease. In train, all the 
compassion which blesses our daily life is a pledge of 
grace; and He Who healeth all our diseases forgiveth 
also all our iniquities. But since healing was the 
severer test in their reckoning, Jesus does not evade it. 
He restores the palsied man to health, that they might 
know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to 
forgive sins. Sothen, pardon does not lie concealed and 
doubtful in the councils ofan unknown world. It is pro- 
nounced on earth. The Son of man, wearing our nature 
and touched with our infirmities, bestows it still, in the 
Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in the ministrations of 
His servants. Wherever He discerns faith, He responds 
with assurance of the absolution and remission of sins. 

He claims to do this, as men had so iately observed 
that He both taught and worked miracles, “with author- 
ity.” We then saw that this word expressed the direct 
and personal mastery with which He wrought, and 
which the apostles never claimed for themselves. 

Therefore this text cannot be quoted in defence of 
priestly absolutions, as long as these are hypothetical, 
and depend on the recipient’s earnestness, or on any 
supposition, any uncertainty whatever. Christ did not 
utter a hypothesis. 

Fortunately, too, the argument that men, priestly 
men, must have authority on earth to forgive sins, 
because the Son of man has such authority, can be 
brought to an easy test. There is a passage elsewhere, 
which asserts His authority, and upon which the claim 
to share it can be tried. The words are, ‘‘ The Father 
gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He 
is the Son of man,” and they are immediately followed 
by an announcement of the resurrection to judgment 
(John v. 27, 29). Is any one prepared to contend that 


52 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





such authority as that is vested in other sons of men ? 
And if not that, why this ? 

But if priestly absolutions are not here, there remains 
the certainty that Jesus brought to earth, to man, the 
gift of prompt effective pardon, to be realized by faith, 

The sick man is ordered to depart at once. Further 
discourse might perhaps be reserved for others, but 
he may not linger, having received his own bodily 
and spiritual medicine. The teaching of Christ is not 
for curiosity. It is good for the greatly blessed to be 
alone. And it is sometimes dangerous for obscure 
people to be thrust into the centre of attention. 

Hereupon, another touch of nature discovers itself in 
the narrative, for it is now easy to pass through the 
crowd. Men who would not in their selfishness give 
place for palsied misery, readily make room for the distin- 
guished person who has received a miraculous blessing. 


THE SON OF MAN. 


‘The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” —MARK ii. 10, 


WHEN asserting His power to forgive sins, Jesus, for the 
first time in our Gospel, called Himself the Son of man, 

It is a remarkable phrase. The profound reverence 
which He from the first inspired, restrained all other 
lips from using it, save only when the first martyr felt 
such a rush of sympathy from above poured into his 
soul, that the thought of Christ’s humanity was more 
moving than that of His deity. So too it is then 
alone that He is said to be not enthroned in heaven, 
but standing, ‘‘the Son of man, standing on the right 
hand of God” (Acts vii. 56).* 


* The exceptions in the Revelation are only apparent. St. John does 
not call Jesus the Son of man (i. 13), nor see Him, but only the type of 
Ilim, standing (v. 6). 


Mark ii. 10.] THE SON OF MAN. 53 


What then does this title imply ? Beyond doubt 
it is derived from Daniel’s vision: ‘‘ Behold there came 
with the clouds of heaven one like unto a Son of man, 
and He came even to the Ancient of Days” (vii. 13). 
And it was by the bold and unequivocal appropriation 
of this verse that Jesus brought upon Himself the 
judgment of the council (Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62). 

Now the first impression which the phrase in Daniel 
produces is that of strong and designed contrast 
between the Son of man and the Eternal God. We 
wonder at seeing man “ brought nigh” to Deity. Nor 
may we suppose that to be “like unto a Son of man,” 
implies only an appearance cf manhood. In Daniel the 
Messiah can be cut off. When Jesus uses the epithet, 
and even when He quotes the prophecy, He not only 
resembles a Son of man, He is truly such ; He is most 
frequently ‘‘¢he Son of man,” the pre-eminent, perhaps 
the only one.* 

But while the expression intimates a share in the 
lowliness of human nature, it does not imply a lowly 
rank among men. 

Our Lord often suggested by its use the difference 
between His circumstances and His dignity. “The 
Son of man hath not where to lay His head:” 
“ Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss,” in each 
of these we feel that the title asserts a claim to different 
treatment. And in the great verse, God “hath given 
Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the 
Son of man,” we discern that although human hands 
are chosen as fittest to do judgment upon humanity, 
yet His extraordinary dignity is also taken into account. 


* And this proves beyond que-tion that He did not merely follow 
Ezekiel in applying to himself the epithet as if it meant a son among 
many sens of men, but took the description in Daniel for His own, 
Ezekiel himself indeed never employs the phrase: he only records it. 


54 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


> 





The title belongs to our Lord's humiliation, but is far 
from an additional abasement ; it asserts His supremacy 
over those whom He is not ashamed to call brethren. 

We all are sons of men; and Jesus used the phrase 
when He promised that all manner of sins and blas- 
phemies shall be forgiven to us. But there is a higher 
sense in which, among thousands of the ignoble, we 
single out one “real man ;” and in this sense, as fulfilling 
the idea, Jesus was the Second Man. What a difference 
exists between the loftiest sons of vulgar men, and the 
Son of our complete humanity, of the race, “of Man.” 
The pre-eminence even of our best and greatest is 
fragmentary and incomplete. In their veins runs but a 
portion of the rich life-blood of the race: but a share of 
its energy throbs in the greatest bosom. We seldom 
find the typical thinker in the typical man of action. 
Originality of purpose and of means are not commonly 
united. To know all that holiness embraces, we must 
combine the energies of one saint with the gentler graces 
of a second and the spiritual insight of a third. There 
is no man of genius who fails to make himself the child 
of his nation and his age, so that Shakespeare would be 
impossible in France, Hugo in Germany, Goethe in Eng- 
land. Two great nations slay their kings and surrender 
their liberties to military dictators, but Napoleon would 
have been unendurable to us, and Cromwell ridiculous 
across the channel. 

Large allowances are to be made for the Greek in 
Plato, the Roman in Epictetus, before we can learn of 
them. Each and all are the sons of their tribe and 
century, not of all mankind and all time. But who 
will point out the Jewish warp in any word or institu- 
tion of Jesus? In the new man which is after [lis 
image there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and 


Mark ii. 10.] THE SON OF MAN. 53 





uncircumcision, barbarian, Seythian, bondman, free- 
man, but Christ is all and in all, sometning of Him 
represented by each, all of them concentrated in Him. 
He alone speaks to all men without any foreign accent, 
and He alone is recognised and understood as widely 
as the voices of nature, as the sigh of waves and breezes, 
and the still endurance of the stars. Reading the 
Gospels, we become aware that four writers of widely 
different bias and temperament have all found an equally 
congenial subject, so that each has given a portrait 
harmonious with the others, and yet unique. It is 
because the sum total of humanity is in Christ, that no 
single writer could have told His story. 

But now consider what this implies. It demands an 
example from which lonely women and heroic leaders 
of action should alike take fire. It demands that He 
should furnish meditation for sages in the closet, and 
should found a kingdom more brilliant than those of 
conquerors. It demands that He should strike out new 
paths towards new objects, and be supremely original 
without deviating from what is truly sane and human, 
for any selfish or cruel or unwholesome joy. It demands 
the gentleness of a sheep before her shearers, and such 
burning wrath as seven times over denounced against 
the hypocrites of Jerusalem woe and the damnation of 
hell. It demands the sensibilities which made Gethse- 
mane dreadful, and the strength which made Calvary 
sublime. It demands that when we approach Him we 
should learn to feel the awe of other worlds, the near- 
ness of God, the sinfulness of sin, the folly of laying up 
much goods for many years; that life should be mace 
solemn and profound, but yet that it should not be 
darkened nor depressed unduly; that nature and oan 
should be made dear to us, little children, and. sinners 


= 


56 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





who are scorned yet who love much, and lepers who 
stand afar off—yes, and even the lilies of the field and 
the fowls of the air; that He should not be unaware of 
the silent processes of nature which bears fruit of itself, 
of sunshine and rain, and the fury of storms and 
torrents, and the leap of the lightning across all the 
sky. Thus we can bring to Jesus every anxiety and 
every hope, for He, and only He, was tempted in all 
points like unto us. Universality of power, of sym- 
pathy, and of influence, is the import of this title 
which Jesus claims. And that demand Jesus only has 
satisfied, Who is the Master of Sages, the Friend of 
sinners, the Man of Sorrows, and the King of kings, 
the one perfect blossom on the tree of our humanity, 
the ideal of our nature incarnate, the Second Adam 
in Whom the fulness of the race is visible. The 
Second Man is the Lord from Heaven. And this 
strange and solitary grandeur He foretold, when He 
took to Himself this title, itself equally strange and 
solitary, the Son of man. 


THE CALL AND FEAST OF LEVI. 


** And He went forth again by the sea side ; and all the multitude 
resorted unto Him, and He taught them. And as He passed by, He 
saw Levi the son of Alphzeus sitting at the place of toll, and He saith 
unto him, Follow Me. And hearose and followed Him. And it came 
te pass, that He was sitting at meat in his house, and many publicars 
and sinners sat down with Jesus and His disciples: for there were 
many, and they followed Him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, 
when they saw that He was eating with the sinners and publicans, 
said unto His disciples, He eateth and drinketh with publicans and 
sinners. And when Jesus heard it, He saith unto them, They that are 
whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick : I came not 
to call the righteous, but sinners.” MARK ii. 13-7 (R.V.). 


Jesus loved the open air. His custom when teaching 
was to’ point to the sower, the lily, and the bird. He 


Mark ii. 13-17.] ZHE CALL AND FEAST OF LEVI. 57 





is ni) pale recluse emerging from a library to instruct, 
in the dim religious light of cloisters, a world unknown 
except by books. Accordingly we find Him ‘again 
by the sea-side.” And however the scribes and 
Pharisees may have continued to murmur, the multi- 
tudes resorted to Him, confiding in the evidence of 
their experience, which never saw it on this fashion. 

That argument was perfectly logical; it was an in- 
duction, yet it led them to a result curiously the reverse 
of theirs who reject miracles for being contrary to expe- 
rience. ‘ Yes,” they said, ‘we appeal to experience, 
but the conclusion is that good deeds which it cannot 
parallel must come directly from the Giver of all good.” 

Such good deeds continue. The creed of Christ has 
re-formed Europe, it is awakening Asia, it has trans- 
formed morality, and imposed new virtues on the con- 
science. It is the one religion for the masses, the 
lapsed, and indeed for the sick in body as truly as in 
soul; for while science discourses with enthusiasm 
upon progress by the rejection of the less fit, our faith 
cherishes these in hospitals, asylums, and retreats, and 
prospers by lavishing care upon the outcast and re- 
jected of the world. Now this transcends experience : 
we never saw it on this fashion; it is supernatural. 
Or else let scientific atheism produce its reformed 
magdalens, and its homes for the hopelessly diseased 
and imbecile, and all “the weakest” who go, as she 
tenderly assures us, “to the wall.” 

Jesus now gave a signal proof of His independence 
of human judgment, His care for the despised and re- 
jected. For such a one He completed the rupture 
between Himself and the rulers of the people. 

Sitting at the receipt of toll, in the act of levying 
from his own nation the dues of the conqueror, Levi 


58 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
the publican received the call to become an Apostle 
and Evangelist. It was a resolute defiance of the 
pharisaic judgment. It was a memorable rebuke for 
those timid slaves of expediency who nurse their in- 
fluence, refuse to give offence, fear to “ mar their use- 
fulness” by “(compromising themselves,” and so make 
their whole life one abject compromise, and let all 
emphatic usefulness go by. 

Here is one upon whom the bigot scowls more darkly 
still than upon Jesus Himself, by whom the Roman 
yoke is pressed upon Hebrew necks, an apostate in 
men’s judgment from the national faith and hope. And 
such judgments sadly verify themselves; a despised 
man easily becomes despicable. 

But however Levi came by so strange and hateful an 
office, Jesus saw in him no slavish earner of vile bread 
by doing the foreigner’s hateful work. He was more 
willing than they who scorned him to follow the true 
King of Israel. It is even possible that the national 
humiliations to which his very office testified led him 
to other aspirations, longings after a spiritual kingdom 
beyond reach of the sword or the exactions of Rome. 
For his Gospel is full of the true kingdom of heaven, 
the spiritual fulfilments of prophecy, and the relations 
between the Old Testament and the Messiah. 

Here then is an opportunity to show the sneering 
scribe and carping Pharisee how little their cynical 
criticism weighs with Jesus. He calls the despised 
agent of the heathen to His side, and is obeyed. And 
now the name of the publican is engraven upon one of 
the foundations of the city of God. 

Nor did Jesus refuse to carry such condescension to 
its utmost limit, eating and drinking in Levi’s house 
with many publicans and sinners, whe were already 


Markii.13-17.] THE CALL AND FEAST OF LEVI. 59 
attracted by His teaching, and now rejoiced in His 
familiarity. Just in proportion as He offended the 
pharisaic scribes, so did He inspire with new hope the 
unhappy classes who were taught to consider them- 
selves castaway. His very presence was medicinal, a 
rebuke to foul words and thoughts, an outward and 
visible sign of grace. It brought pure air and sunshine 
into a fever-stricken chamber. 

And this was His justification when assailed. He 
had borne healing to the sick. He had called sinners 
to repentance. And therefore His example has a 
double message. It rebukes those who look curiously 
on the intercourse of religious people with the world, 
who are plainly of opinion that the leaven should 
be hid anywhere but in the meal, who can never 
fairly understand St. Paul’s permission to go to an 
idolater’s feast. But it gives no licence to go where 
we cannot be a healing influence, where the light 
must be kept in a dark lantern if not under a bushel, 
where, instead of drawing men upward, we shall only 
confirm their indolent self-satisfaction. 

Christ’s reason for seeking out the sick, the lost, is 
ominous indeed for the self-satisfied. The whole have 
no need of a physician; He came not to call the 
righteous. Such persons, whatever else they be, are 
not Christians until they come to a different mind. 

In calling Himself the Physician of sick souls, Jesus 
made a startling claim, which becomes more emphatic 
when we observe that He also quoted the words of 
Hosea, “1 will have mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt. 
ix. 13; Hos. vi.6). For this expression occurs in that 
chapter which tells how the Lord Himself hath smitten 
and will bind usup. And the complaint is just before it 
that when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw 


60 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK 





his wound, then went Ephraim to Assyria and sent to 
king Jareb, but he is not able to heal you, neither shall 
he cure you of your wound (Hos. v. 13-vi. 1). As 
the Lord Himself hath torn, so He must heal. 

Now Jesus comes to that part of Israel which the 
Pharisees despise for being wounded and diseased, and 
justifies Himself by words which must, from their 
context, have reminded every Jew of the declaration 
that God is the physician, and it is vain to seek healing 
elsewhere. And immediately afterwards, He claims 
to be the Bridegroom, whom also Hosea spoke of as 
divine. Yet men profess that only in St. John does 
He advance such claims that we should ask, Whom 
makest Thou Thyself? Let them try the experiment, 
then, of putting such words into the lips of any mortal. 

The choice of the apostles, and most of all that of 
Levi, illustrates the power of the cross to elevate 
obscure and commonplace lives. He was born, to all 
appearance, to an uneventful, unobserved existence. 
We read no remarkable action of the Apostle Matthew ; 
as an Evangelist he is simple, orderly and accurate, as 
becomes a man of business, but the graphic energy of 
St. Mark, the pathos of St. Luke, the profundity of 
St. John are absent. Yet his greatness will outlive the 
world. 

Now as Christ provided nobility and a career for 
this man of the people, so He does for all. “ Are all 
apostles?” Nay, but all may become pillars in the 
temple of eternity. The gospel finds men plunged in 
monotony, in the routine of callings which machinery 
and the subdivision of labour make ever more colour- 
less, spiritless, and dull. It is a small thing that 
it introduces them to a literature more sublime than 
Milton, more sincere and direct than Shakespere. It 


Markii.18.] CONTROVERSY CONCERNING FASTING. 61 


brings their little lives into relationship with eternity. 
It braces them for a vast struggle, watched by a 
great cloud of witnesses. It gives meaning and beauty 
to the sordid present, and to the future a hope full 
of immortality. It brings the Christ of God nearer 
to the humblest than when of old He ate and drank 
with publicans and sinners. 


THE CONTROVERSY CONCERNING FASTING. 


* And John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting : and they come 
and say unto Him, Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the 
Pharisees fast, but Thy disciples fast not ?” —MArkK ii 18 (R.V.). 


Tue Pharisees had just complained to the disciples that 
Jesus ate and drank in questionable company. Now 
they join with the followers of the ascetic Baptist in 
complaining to Jesus that His disciples eat and drink 
at improper seasons, when others fast. And as Jesus 
had then replied, that being a Physician, He was 
naturally found among the sick, so He now answered, 
that being the Bridegroom, fasting in His presence is 
impossible: “Can the sons of the bridechamber fast 
while the Bridegroom is with them?” A new spirit is 
working in Christianity, far too mightily to be restrained 
by ancient usages; if the new wine be put into such 
wineskins it will spoil them, and itself be lost. 

Hereupon three remarkable subjects call for attention: 
the immense personal claim advanced; the view which 
Christ takes of fasting ; and, arising out of this, the 
principle which He applies to all external rites and 
ceremonies. 

I. Jesus does not inquire whether the fasts of other . 
men were unreasonable or not. In any case, He de- 
clares that His mere presence put everything on a new 
focting for His followers who could not fast simply 


62 GOSPEL OF ST, MARK 





because He was by. Thus He assumes a function high 
above that of any prophet or teacher: He not only 
reveals duty, as a lamp casts light upon the compass 
by which men steer; but He modifies duty itself, as 
iron deflects the needle. 

This is because He is the Bridegroom. 

The disciples of John would hereupon recall his 
words of self-effacement ; that He was only the friend 
of the Bridegroom, whose fullest joy was to hear the 
Bridegroom’s exultant voice. 

But no Jew could forget the Old Testament use of 
the phrase. It is clear from St. Matthew, that this 
controversy followed immediately upon the last, when 
Jesus assumed a function ascribed to God Himself by 
the very passage from Hosea which He then quoted, 
Then He was the Physician for the soul’s diseases; 
now He is the Bridegroom, in Whom centre its hopes, its 
joys, its affections, its new life. That position in the 
spiritual existence cannot be given away from God 
w:thout idolatry. The same Hosea who makes God the 
Healer, gives to Him also, in the most explicit words, 
what Jesus now claims for Himself. ‘I will betroth 
thee unto Me for ever... I will even betroth thee 
unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord’ 
(ii. 19, 20). Isaiah too declares “thy Maker is thy 
husband,” and ‘‘as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the 
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee” (liv. 5 ; Ixii. 
5). And in Jeremiah, God remembers the love of 
Israel's espousals, who went after Him in the wilderness, 
in a land that was not sown (ii. 2). Now all this is 
transferred throughout the New Testament to Jesus. 
The Baptist is not alone in this respect. St. John re- 
cards the Bride as the wife of the Lamb (Rev. xxi. 9). 
St. Paul would fain present his Corinthian Church as 


Mark it. 18.] CONTROVERSY CONCERNING FASTING. 63 


a pure virgin to Christ, as to one husband (2 Cor. 
xi. 2). For him, the absolute oneness of marriage is a 
mystery of the union betwixt Christ and His Church 
(Eph. v. 32). If Jesus be not God, then a relation 
hitherto exclusively belonging to Jehovah, to rob Him 
of which is the adultery of the soul, has been systema- 
tically transferred by the New Testament to a creature. 
His glory has been given to another. 

This remarkable change is clearly the work cf Jesus 
Himself. The marriage supper of which He spoke is 
for the King’s son. At His return the cry will be heard, 
Behold the Bridegroom cometh. In this earliest 
passage His presence causes the joy of the Bride, 
who said to the Lord in the Old Testament, Thou art 
my Husband (Hosea ii. 16). 

There is not to be found in the Gospel of St. John 
a passage more certainly calculated to inspire, when 
Christ’s dignity was assured by His resurrection and 
ascension, the adoration which His Church has always 
paid to the Lamb in the midst of the throne. 

II. The presence of the Bridegroom dispenses with 
the obligation to fast. Yet it is beyond denial that 
fasting as a religious exercise comes within the circle of 
New Testament sanctions. Jesus Himself, when taking 
our burdens upon Him, as He had stooped to the 
baptism of repentance, condescended also to fast. He 
taught His disciples when they fasted to anoint their 
head and wash their face. The mention of fasting 
is indeed a later addition to the words “this kind (of 
demon) goeth not out but by prayer” (Mark ix. 29), 
but we know that the prophets and teachers of Antioch 
were fasting when bidden to consecrate Barnabas and 
Saul, and they fasted again and prayed before they 
laid their hands upon them (Acts xiii. 2, 3). 


64 GOSPEL OF S17. MARK. 


Thus it is right to fast, at times and from one point 
of view ; but at other times, and from Jewish and formal 
motives, it is unnatural and mischievous, It is right 
when the Bridegroom is taken away, a phrase which 
certainly does not cover all this space between the 
Ascension and the Second Advent, since Jesus still 
reveals Himself to His own though not unto the world, 
and is with His Church all the days. Scripture has 
no countenance for the notion that we lost by the 
Ascension in privilege or joy. But when the body 
would fain rise up against the spirit, it must be kept 
under and brought into subjection (1 Cor. ix. 27). 
When the closest domestic joys would interrupt the 
seclusion of the soul with God, they may be suspended, 
though but for a time (1 Cor. vii. 5). And when the 
supreme blessing of intercourse with God, the presence 
of the Bridegroom, is obscured or forfeited through sin, 
_ it will then be as inevitable that the loyal heart should 
turn away from worldly pleasures, as that the first 
disciples should reject these in the dread hours of their 
bereavement. 

Thus Jesus abolished the superstition that grace may 
be had by a mechanical observance of a prescribed 
regimen at an appointed time. He did not deny, but 
rather implied the truth, that bedy and soul act and 
counteract so that spiritual impressions may be weakened 
and forfeited by untimely indulgence of the flesh. 

By such teaching, Jesus carried forward the doctrine 
already known to the Old Testament. There it was 
distinctly announced that the return from exile abrogated 
those fasts which commemorated national calamities, 
so that “the fast of the fourth month, and of the fifth, 
and of the seventh and of the tenth shall be to the 
house of Israel] joy and gladness, cheerful feasts ” (Zech, 


Markii.18.] CONTROVERSY CONCERNING FASTING. 65 


Vii. 3, viii. 19). Even while these fasts had lasted they 
had been futile, because they were only formal. ‘“ When 
ye fasted and mourned, did ye at all fast unto me ? And 
when ye eat, and when ye drink, do ye not eat for your- 
selves, and drink for yourselves?” (Zech. vii. 5,6). And 
Isaiah had plainly laid down the great rule, that a fast 
and an acceptable day unto the Lord was not a day to 
afflict the soul and bow the head, but to deny and 
discipline our selfishness for some good end, to toose 
the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of ‘he yoke, 
and to let the oppressed go free, to deal bread to the 
hungry, and to bring home the poor that is cast out 
(Isa. lviii. 5-7). 

The true spirit of fasting breathes an ampler breath 
in any of the thousand forms of Christian self-denial, 
than in those petty abstinences, those microscopic 
observances, which move our wonder less by the super~ 
stition which expects them to bring grace than by the 
childishness which expects them to have any effect 
whatever. 

III. Jesus now applies a great principle to ali 
external rites and ceremonies. They have their value. 
As the wineskin retains the wine, so are feelings and as- 
pirations aided, and even preserved, by suitable external 
forms. Without these, emotion would lose itself for 
want of restraint, wasted, like spilt wine, by diffuse- 
ness. And if the forms are unsuitable and outworn, 
the same calamity happens, the strong new feelings 
break through them, ‘‘and the wine perisheth, and the 
skins.” In this respect, how many a sad experience of 
the Church attests the wisdom of her Lord; what losses 
have been suffered in the struggle between forms that 
had stiffened into archaic ceremonialism and new zeal 
demanding scope for its energy, between the antiquated 


5 


66 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


phrases of a bygone age and the new experience, know- 
ledge and requirements of the next, between the frosty 
precisions of unsympathetic age and the innocent 
warmth and freshness of the young, too often, alas, 
lost to their Master in passionate revolt against re~ 
straints which He neither imposed nor smiled upon. 

Therefore the coming of a new revelation meant the 
repeal of old observances, and Christ refused to sew 
His new faith like a patchwork upon ancient institu- 
tions, of which it would only complete the ruin. Thus 
He anticipated the decision of His apostles releasing 
the Gentiles from the law of Moses. And He bestowed 
on His Church an adaptiveness to various times and 
places, not always remembered by missionaries among 
the heathen, by fastidious critics of new movements at 
home, nor by men who would reduce the lawfulness 
of modern agencies to a question of precedent and 
archzeology. 


THE SABBATH. 


‘¢ And it came to pass, that He was going on the sabbath day through 
the cornfields ; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears 
of corn. And the Pharisees said unto Him, Behold, why do they on 
the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And He said unto them, 
Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an 
hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he entered into the 
house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and did eat the shew- 
bread, which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also 
to them that were with him? And Ie said unto them, The sabbath 
was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of 
man is Lord even of the sabbath.” —MArk ii. 23-28 (R.V.). 


Twice in succession Christ had now asserted the free- 
dom of the soul against His Jewish antagonists. He 
was free to eat with sinners, for their good, and His 
followers were free to disregard fasts, because the 


Mark ii. 23-28.] THE SABBATH. 67 


Bridegroom was with them. A third attack in the 
same series is prepared. The Pharisees now take 
stronger ground, since the law itself enforced the 
obligation of the Sabbath. Even Isaiah, the most 
free-spirited of all the prophets, in the same passage 
where he denounced the fasts of the self-righteous, 
bade men to keep their foot from the Sabbath (Isa. 
lviii. 13, 14). Here they felt sure of their position ; and 
when they found the disciples, in a cornfield where the 
long stems had closed over the path, “ making a way,” 
which was surely forbidden labour, and this by 
“plucking the ears,” which was reaping, and then 
rubbing these in their hands to reject the chaff, which 
Was winnowing, they cried out in affected horror, 
Behold, why do they that which is not lawful? To 
them it mattered nothing that the disciples really 
hungered, and that abstinence, rather than the slight 
exertion which they condemned, would cause real in- 
convenience and unrest. 

Perhaps the answer of our Lord has been as much 
misunderstood as any other words He ever spoke. It 
has been assumed that He spoke across the boundary 
between the new dispensation and the old, as One 
from whose movements the restraints of Judaism had 
entirely fallen away, to those who were still entangled 
And it has been inferred that the Fourth Command- 
ment was no more than such a restraint, now thrown 
off among the rest. But this is quite a misapprehen- 
sion both of His position and theirs. On earth He 
was a minister of the circumcision. He bade His 
disciples to observe and do all that was commanded 
from the seat of Moses. And it is by Old Testament 
precedent, and from Old Testament principles, that He 
now refutes the objection of the Pharisees. This is 


68 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


what gives the passage half its charm, this discovery 
of freedom like our own in the heart of the stern old 
Hebrew discipline, as a fountain and flowers on the face 
of a granite crag, this demonstration that all we now 
enjoy is developed from what already lay in gern 
enfolded in the law. 

David and his followers, when at extremity, had 
eaten the shewbread which it was not lawful for them 
toeat. It is a striking assertion. We should proba- 
bly have sought a softer phrase. We should have said 
that in other circumstances it would have been unlaw- 
ful, that only necessity made it lawful ; we should have 
refused to look straight in the face the naked ugly fact 
that David broke the law. But Jesus was not afraid 
of any fact. He saw and declared that the priests in 
the Temple itself profaned the Sabbath when they 
baked the shewbread and when they circumcised chil- 
dren. They were blameless, not because the Fourth 
Commandment remained inviolate, but because circum- 
stances made it right for them to profane the Sabbath. 
And His disciples were blameless also, upon the same 
principle, that the larger obligation overruled the 
lesser, that all ceremonial observance gave way to 
human need, that mercy is a better thing than sacri- 
fice. 

And thus it appeared that the objectors were them- 
selves the transgressors; they had condemned the 
guiltless. 

A little reflection will show that our Lord’s bold 
method, His startling admission that David and the 
priests alike did that which was not lawful, is much 
more truly reverential than our soft modern compro- 
mises, our shifty devices for persuading ourselves that 
in various permissible and even necessary deviations 


Mark ii. 23-28.] THE SABBATH. 69 


from prescribed observances, there is no real infraction 
of any law whatever. 

To do this, we reduce to a minimum the demands of 
the precept. We train ourselves to think, not of its 
full extension, but of what we can compress it into. 
Therefore, in future, even when no urgency exists, the 
precept has lost all beyond this minimum; its sharp 
edges are filed away. Jesus leaves it to resume all 
its energy, when mercy no longer forbids the sacri- 
fice. 

The text, then, says nothing about the abolition of 
a Day of Rest. On the contrary, it declares that this 
day is not a Jewish but a universal ordinance, it is 
made for man. At the same time, it refuses to place 
the Sabbath among the essential and inflexible laws of 
right and wrong. It is made for man, for his physical 
repose and spiritual culture; man was not made for 
it, as he is for purity, truth, and godliness. Better for 
him to die than outrage these; they are the laws of 
his very being; he is royal by serving them; in obey- 
ing them he obeys his God. It is not thus with 
anything external, ceremonial, any ritual, any rule 
of conduct, however universal be its range, however 
permanent its sanctions. The Sabbath is such a rule, 
permanent, far-reaching as humanity, made “for man.” 
But this very fact, Jesus tells us, is the reason why He 
Who represented the race and its interests, was ‘‘ Lord 
even of the Sabbath.” 

Let those who deny the Divine authority of this 
great institution ponder well the phrase which asserts 
its universal range, and which finds it a large assertion 
of the mastery of Christ that He is Lord “even of the 
Sabbath.” But those who have scruples about the 
change of day by which honour is paid to Christ’s 


70 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


resurrection, and those who would make burdensome 
and dreary, a horror to the young and a torpor to the 
old, what should be called a delight and honourable, 
these should remember that the ordinance is blighted, 
root and branch, when it is forbidden to minister to 
the physical or spiritual welfare of the human race, 


CHAPTER III. 
THE WITHERED HAND. 


-And He entered again into the synagogue ; and «here was a man 
there which had his hand withered. And they watched Him, whether 
He would heal him on the sabbath day ; that they might accuse Him. 
And He saith unto the man that had his hand withered, Stand forth. 
And He saith unto them, Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good 
or todo harm? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their peace. 
And when He had looked round about on them with anger, being 
grieved at the hardening of their heart, He saith unto the man, 
Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth: and his hand was 
restored. And the Pharisees went out, and straightway with the Hero- 
dians took counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him.”— 
MARK iii. I-6 (R.V.). 


N the controversies just recorded, we have recog- 
nised the ideal Teacher, clear to discern and quick 
to exhibit the decisive point at issue, careless of small 
pedantries, armed with principles and precedents which 
go to the heart of the dispute. 
But the perfect man must be competent in more than 
theory ; and we have now a marvellous example of 
tact, decision and self-controlin action. When Sabbath 


’ observance is again discussed, his enemies have re- 


solved to push matters to extremity. They watch, no 
longer to cavil, but that they may accuse Him. It is 
in the synagogue; and their expectations are sharpened 
by the presence of a pitiable object, a man whose hand 
is not only paralyzed in the sinews, but withered up 
and hopeless. St. Luke tells us that it was the right 


72 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





hand, which deepened his misery. And St. Matthew 
records that they asked Christ, Is it lawful to heal on 
the Sabbath day ? thus urging Him by a challenge to 
the deed which they condemned. What a miserable 
state of mind! They believe that Jesus can work the 
cure, since this is the very basis of their plot; and yet 
their hostility is not shaken, for belief in a miracle is 
not conversion; to acknowledge a prodigy is one thing, 
and to surrender the will is quite another. Or how 
should we see around us so many Christians in theory, 
reprobates in life? They long to see the man healed, 
yet there is no compassion in this desire, hatred urges 
them to wish what mercy impels Christ to grant. But 
while He relieves the sufferer, He will also expose their 
malice. Therefore He makes His intention public, and 
whets their expectation, by calling the man forth into 
_ the midst. And then He meets their question with 
another: Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or 
evil, to save life or to kill? And when they preserved 
their calculated silence, we know how He pressed the 
question home, reminding them that not one of them 
would fail to draw His own sheep out of a pit upon 
the Sabbath day. Selfishness made the difference, for 
a man was better than a sheep, but did not, like the 
sheep, belong tothem. They do not answer: instead 
of warning Him away from guilt, they eagerly await 
the incriminating act: we can almost see the spiteful 
subtle smile playing about their bloodless lips; and 
Jesus marks them well. He looked round about them 
in anger, but not in bitter personal resentment, for He 
was grieved at the hardness of their hearts, and pitied 
them also, even while enduring such contradiction of 
sinners against Himself. This is the first mention by 
St. Mark of that impressive gaze, afterwards so frequent 


Mark iii. 1-6.] THE WITHERED HAND. 73 
in every Gospel, whichsearched the scribe who answered 
well, and melted the heart of Peter. 

And now, by one brief utterance, their prey breaks 
through their meshes. Any touch would have been a 
work, a formal infraction of the law. Therefore there 
is no touch, neither is the helpless man bidden to take 
up any burden, or instigated to the slightest ritual irre- 
gularity. Jesus only bids him do what was forbidden 
to none, but what had been impossible for him to per- 
form; and the man succeeds, he does stretch forth his 
hand: he is healed: the work is done. Yet nothing 
has been done ; as a work of healing not even a word 
has been said. For He who would so often defy their 
malice has chosen to show once how easily He can 
evade it, and not one of them is more free from any 
blame, however technical, than He. The Pharisees are 
so utterly baffled, so helpless in His hands, so “ filled 
with madness” that they invoke against this new foe 
the help of their natural enemies, the Herodians. 
These appear on the stage because the immense spread 
of the Messianic movement endangers the Idumzean 
dynasty. When first the wise men sought an infant 
King of the Jews, the Herod of that day was troubled. 
That instinct which struck at His cradle is now re- 
awakened, and will not slumber again until the fatal 
day when the new Herod shall set Him at nought and 
mock Him. In the meanwhile these strange allies 
perplex themselves with the hard question, How is it 
possible to destroy so acute a foe. 

While observing their malice, and the exquisite skill 
which baffles it, we must not lose sight of other lessons. 
It is to be observed that no offence to hypocrites, no 
danger to Himself, prevented Jesus from removing 
human suffering. And also that He expects from the 


74 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
man a certain co-operation involving faith: he must 
stand forth in the midst; every one must see his un- 
happiness; he is to assume a position which will 
become ridiculous unless a miracle is wrought. Then 
he must make an effort. In the act of stretching forth 
his hand the strength to stretch it forth is given ; but 
he would not have tried the experiment unless he 
trusted before he discovered the power. Such is the 
faith demanded of our sin-stricken and helpless souls; 
a faith which confesses its wretchedness, believes in 
the good will of God and the promises of Christ, and 
receives the experience of blessing through having acted 
on the belief that already the blessing is a fact in the 
Divine volition. 

Nor may we overlook the mysterious impalpable 
spiritual power which effects its purposes without a 
touch, or even an explicit word of healing import. 
What is it but the power of Him Who spake and it 
was done, Who commanded and it stood fast ? 

And all this vividness of look and bearing, this 
innocent subtlety of device combined with a boldness 
which stung His foes to madness, all this richness and 
verisimilitude of detail, this truth to the character of 
Jesus, this spiritual freedom from the trammels of a 
system petrified and grown rigid, this observance in a 
secular act of the requirements of the spiritual kingdom, 
all this wealth of internal evidence goes to attest one 
of the minor miracles which sceptics declare to be 
incredible, 


Markiii.7-19.] THE CHOICE OF THE TWELVE. 75 


ZHE CHOICE OF THE TWELVE. 

** And Jesus with His disciples withdrew to the sea: and a great 
multitude from Galilee followed : and from Judzea, and from Jerusalem, 
and from Idumza, and beyond Jordan, and about Tyre and Sidon, a 
great multitude, hearing what great things He did, came unto Him. 
And Ele spake to His disciples, that a little boat should wait on Him 
because of the crowd, lest they should throng Him: for He had healed 
many; insomuch that as many as had plagues pressed upon Him that 
they might touch Him. And the unclean spirits, whensoever they be- 
held Him, fell down before Him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son 
of God. And He charged them much that they should not make Him 
known. And He goeth up into the mountain, and calleth unto Him 
whom He Himself would: and they went unto Him. And He appointed 
twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He might send them 
forth to preach, and to have authority to cast out devils: and Simon 
he surnamed Peter; and James the soz of Zebedee, and John the 
brother of James ; and them He surnanied Boanerges, which is, Sons 
of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, 
and Thomas, and James the soz of Alpheus, and Thaddzeus, and 
Simon the Cananzan, and Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him.”— 
MARK iii. 7-19 (R.V.). 


WE have reached a crisis in the labours of the Lord, 
when hatred which has become deadly is preparing a 
blow. The Pharisees are aware, by a series of experi- 
ences, that His method is destructive to their system, 
that He is too fearless to make terms with them, that 
He will strip the mask off their faces. Their rage 
was presently intensified by an immense extension of 
His fame. And therefore He withdrew from the plots 
which ripen most easily in cities, the hotbeds of 
intrigue, to the open coast. It is His first retreat 
before opposition, and careful readers of the Gospels 
must observe that whenever the pressure of His enemies 
became extreme, He turned for safety to the simple: 
fishermen, among whom they had no party, since 


76 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





they had preached no gospel to the poor, and that 
He was frequently conveyed by water from point to 
point, easily reached by followers, who sometimes 
indeed outran Him upon foot, but where treason had 
to begin its wiles afresh. Hither, perhaps camping 
along the beach, came a great multitude not only from 
Galilee but also from Judzea, and even from the capital, 
the headquarters of the priesthood, and by a journey 
of several days from Idumzea, and from Tyre and 
Sidon, so that afterwards, even there, He could not be 
hid. Many came to see what great things He did, 
but others bore with them some afflicted friend, or 
were themselves sore stricken by disease. And Jesus 
gave like a God, opening His hand and satisfying their 
desires, “‘ for power went out of Him, and healed them 
all.” Not yet had the unbelief of man restrained the 
compassion of His heart, and forced Him to exhibit 
another phase of the mind of God, by refusing to give 
that which is holy to the dogs. As yet, therefore, He 
healeth all their diseases. Then arose an unbecoming 
and irreverent rush of as many as had plagues to touch 
Him. A more subtle danger mingled itself with this 
peril from undue eagerness. For unclean spirits, who 
knew His mysterious personality, observed that this 
was stiil a secret, and was no part of His teaching, 
since His disciples could not bear it yet. Many months 
afterwards, flesh and blood had not revealed it even 
to Peter. And therefore the demons made malicious 
haste to proclaim Him the Son of God, and Jesus was 
obliged to charge them much that they should not 
make Him known. This action of His may teach His 
followers to be discreet. Falsehood indeed is always 
evil, but at times reticence is a duty, because certain 
truths are a medicine too powerful for some stages of 


Marl iii.7-19.] 7HE CHOICE OF THE TWELVE. 77 





spiritual disease. The strong sun which ripens the 
grain in autumn, would burn up the tender germs of 
spring. 

But it was necessary to teach as well as to heal. 
And Jesus showed his ready practical ingenuity, by 
arranging that a little boat should wait on Him, and 
furnish at once a pulpit and a retreat. 

And now Jesus took action distinctly Messianic. 
The harvest of souls was plenteous, but the appointed 
labourers were unfaithful, and a new organisation was 
to take their place. Thesacraments and the apostolate 
are indeed the only two institutions bestowed upon His 
Church by Christ Himself; but the latter is enough to 
show that, so early in His course, He saw His way to 
a revolution. He appointed twelve apostles, in clear 
allusion to the tribes of a new Israel, a spiritual 
circumcision, another peculiar people. A new Jerusalem 
should arise, with their names engraven upon its 
twelve foundation stones. But since all great changes 
arrive, not by manufacture but by growth, and in co- 
operation with existing circumstances, since nations and 
constitutions are not made but evolved, so was it also 
with the Church of Christ. The first distinct and formal 
announcement of a new sheepfold, entered by a new 
and living Way, only came when evoked by the action 
of His enemies in casting out the man who was born 
blind. By that time, the apostles were almost ready 
to take their place in it. They had learned much. 
They had watched the marvellous career to which 
their testimony should be rendered. By exercise they 
had learned the reality, and by failure the condition 
of the miraculous powers which they should transmit. 
But long before, at the period we have now reached, 
the apostles had been chosen under pressure of the 


78 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR. 


necessity to meet the hostility of the Pharisees with a 
counter-agency, and to spread the knowledge of His 
power and doctrine farther than One Teacher, however 
endowed, could reach. They were to be workers 
together with Him. 

St. Mark tells us that He went up into the mountain, 
the well known hill of the neighbourhood, as St. 
Luke also implies, and there called unto Him whom 
He Himself would. The emphasis refutes a curious 
conjecture, that Judas may have been urged upon Him 
with such importunity by the rest that to reject became 
a worse evil than to receive him.* The choice was all 
His own, and in their early enthusiasm ‘not one whom 
He summoned refused the call. Out of these He 
chose the Twelve, elect of the election. 

We learn from St. Luke (v. 12) that His choice, 
fraught with such momentous issues, was made after 
a whole night of prayer, and from St. Matthew that 
He also commanded the whole body of His disciples 
to pray the Lord of the Harvest, not that they them- 
selves should be chosen, but that He would send forth 
labourers into His harvest. 

Now who were these by whose agency the downward 
course of humanity was reversed, and the traditions of 
a Divine faith were poured into a new mould ? 

It must not be forgotten that their ranks were after- 
wards recruited from the purest Hebrew blood and 
ripest culture of the time, The addition of Saul of 
Tarsus proved that knowledge and position were no 
more proscribed than indispensable. Yet is it in the 
last degree suggestive, that Jesus drew His personal 
followers from classes, not indeed oppressed by want, 


* Lange. Life of Christ, ii. p. 179, 


Markili.7-19.] ZTHE CHOICE OF THE TWELVE. 79 
but lowly, unwarped by the prejudicies of the time, 
liviag in close contact with nature and with unsophisti- 
cated men, speaking and thinking the words and 
thoughts of the race and not of its coteries, and face to 
face with the great primitive wants and sorrows over 
which artificial refinement spreads a thin, but often a 
baffling veil. 

With one exception the Nazarene called Galileans to 
His ministry; and the Carpenter was followed by a 
group of fishermen, by a despised publican, by a zealot 
whose love of Israel had betrayed him into wild and 
lawless theories at least, perhaps into evil deeds, and 
by several whose previous life and subsequent labours 
are unknown to earthly fame. Such are the Judges 
enthroned over the twelve tribes of Israel. 

A mere comparison of the lists refutes the notion 
that any one Evangelist has worked up the materials 
of another, so diverse are they, and yet so easily recon- 
ciled. Matthew in one is Leviin another. Thaddeus, 
Jude, and Lebbeeus, are interchangeable. ‘The order 
of the Twelve differs in all the four lists, and yet there 
are such agreements, even in this respect, as to prove 
that all the Evangelists were writing about what they 
understood. Divide the Twelve into three ranks of 
four, and in none of the four catalogues will any name, 
or its equivalent, be found to have wandered out of its 
subdivision, out of the first, second, or third rank, in 
which doubtless that apostle habitually followed Jesus. 
Within each rank there is the utmost diversity of place, 
except that the foremost name in each is never varied ; 
Petsr, Philip, and the Lesser James, hold the first, 
fifth, and ninth place in every catalogue. And the 
traitor is always last. These are coincidences too 
slight for design and too striking for accident, they 


80 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. .«. 





are the natural signs of truth. For they indicate, with- 
out obtruding or explaining, some arrangement of 
the ranks, and some leadership of an individual in 
each. 

Moreover, the group of the apostles presents a 
wonderfully lifelike aspect. Fear, ambition, rivalry, 
perplexity, silence when speech is called for, and 
speech when silence is befitting, vows, failures, and yet 
real loyalty, alas! we know them all. The incidents 
which are recorded of the chosen of Christ no inventor 
of the second century would have dared to devise; and 
as we study them, we feel the touch of genuine life; 
not of colossal statues such as repose beneath the 
dome of St. Peter’s, but of men, genuine, simple and 
even somewhat childlike, yet full of strong, fresh, un- 
sophisticated feeling, fit therefore to become a great 
power, and especially so in the capacity of witnesses 
for an ennobling yet controverted fact. 


CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWELVE. 


**And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and 
that He might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to 
cast out devils: and Simon He surnamed Peter ; and James the son 
of Zebedee, and John the brother of James ; and them He surnamed 
Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and 
Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of 
Alphzus, and Thaddzus, and Simon the Cananzan, and Judas 
Iscariot, which also betrayed Him.”—Mark iii. 14-19 (R.V.). 


‘Tur pictures of the Twelve, then, are drawn from a living 
group. And when they are examined in detail, this 
appearance of vitality is strengthened, by the richest 
and most vivid indications of individual character, such 
incced as in several cases to throw light upon the 
choice of Jesus. To invent such touches is the last 


Markiii.14-19.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWELVE. 31 





attainment of dramatic genius, and the artist rarely 
succeeds except ly deliberate and palpable character- 
painting. The waole story of Hamlet and of Lear is 
constructed with this end in view, but no one has ever 
conjectured that the Gospels were psychological studies. 
If, then, we can discover several well-defined charac- 
ters, harmoniously drawn by various writers, as natural 
as the central figure is supernatural, and to be recog- 
nised equally in the common and the miraculous narra- 
tives, this will be an evidence of the utmost value. 

We are all familiar with the impetuous vigour of 
St. Peter, a quality which betrayed him into grave and 
well-nigh fatal errors, but when chastened by suffering 
made him a noble and formidable leader of the Twelve. 
We recognise it when He says, “Thou shalt never 
wash my feet,” “ Though all men should deny Thee, yet 
will I never deny Thee,” “ Lord, to whom should we 
go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life,” ‘“ Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and in his 
rebuke of Jesus for self-sacrifice, and in his rash blow 
in the garden. Does this, the best established mental 
quality of any apostle, fail or grow faint in the miracu- 
lous stories which are condemned as the accretions of a 
Jater time ? In such stories he is related to have cried 
out, “‘ Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” 
he would walk upon the sea to Jesus, he proposed to 
shelter Moses and Elijah from the night air in booths 
(a notion so natural to a bewildered man, so exquisite 
in its officious well-meaning absurdity as to prove it- 
self, for who could have invented it ?), he ventured into 
the empty sepulchre while John stood awe-stricken at 
the portal, he plunged into the lake to seek his risen 
Master on the shore, and he was presently the first to 
d aw the net to land. Observe the restless curiosity 


6 


82 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





which beckoned to John to ask who was the traitor, 
and compare it with his question, “ Lord, and what shall 
this man do?” But the second of these was after the 
resurrection, and in answer to a prophecy. Every- 
where we find a real person and the same, and the 
vehemence is everywhere that of a warm heart, which 
could fail signally but could weep bitterly as well, 
which could learn not to claim, though twice invited, 
greater love than that of others, but when asked 
“ Lovest thou Me” at all, broke out into the passionate 
appeal, ‘“‘ Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest 
that I love Thee.” Dull is the ear of the critic which 
fails to recognise here the voice of Simon. Yet the 
story implies the resurrection. 

The mind of Jesus was too lofty and grave for 
epigram ; but He put the wilful self-reliance which 
Peter had to subdue even to crucifixion, into one deli- 
cate and subtle phrase: “ When thou wast young, thou 
girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest.” 
That self-willed stride, with the loins girded, is the 
natural gait of Peter, when he was young. 

St. James, the first apostolic martyr, seems to have 
over-topped for a while his greater brother St. John, 
before whom he is usually named, and who is once dis- 
tinguished as “the brother of James.” He shares with 
him the title of a Son of Thunder (Mark iii. 17). They 
were together in desiring to rival the fiery and aveng- 
ing miracle of Elijah, and to partake of the profound 
baptism and bitter cup of Christ. It is an undesigned 
coincidence in character, that while the latter of these 
events is recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark, the 
former, which, it will be observed implies perfect confi- 
dence in the supernatural power of Christ, is found in 
St. Luke alone, who has not mentioned the title it 


Mark iii. 14-19.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWELVE. 83 


justifies so curiously (Matt. xx. 20; Mark x. 35; Luke 
ix. 54). It is more remarkable that he whom Christ 
bade to share his distinctive title with another, should 
not once be named as having acted or spoken by him- 
self. With a fire like that of Peter, but no such power 
of initiative and of chieftainship, how natural it is that 
his appointed task was martyrdom. Is it objected that 
his brother also, the great apostle St. John, received only 
a share in that divided title? But the family trait is 
quite as palpable in him. The deeds of John were 
seldom wrought upon his own responsibility, never if 
we except the bringing of Peter into the palace of the 
high priest. He is a keen observer and a deep thinker. 
But he cannot, like his Master, combine the quality of 
leader with those of student and sage. In company with 
Andrew he found the Messiah. We have seen James 
leading him for atime. It was in obedience to a sign 
from Peter that He asked who was the traitor. ‘With 
Peter, when Jesus was arrested, he followed afar off. 
It is very characteristic that he shrank from entering 
the sepulchre until Peter, coming up behind, went in 
first, although it was John who thereupon “saw and 
: believed.” * 

With like discernment, he was the first to recognise 
Jesus beside the lake, but then it was equally natural 
that he should tell Peter, and follow in the ship, 
dragging the net to land, as that Peter should gird 
himself and plunge inte the lake. Peter, when Jesus 
drew him aside, turned and saw the disciple whom 
Jesus loved following, with the same silent, gentle, and 
sociable affection, which had so recently joined him with 


* Tt is also very natural that, in telling the story, he should remem- 
ber how, while hcsitating to enter, he ‘‘ stooped down ” to gaze, in the 
wild dawn of his new hope. 


84 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


the saddest and tende -est of all companions underneath 
the cross. At this point there is a delicate and sugges- 
tive turn of phrase. By what incident would any pen 
except his own have chosen to describe the beloved 
disciple as Peter then beheld him? Assuredly we 
should have written, The disciple whom Jesus loved, 
who also followed Him to Calvary, and to whom He 
confided His mother. But from St. John himself there 
would have been a trace of boastfulness in such a 
phrase. Now the author of the Fourth Gospel, 
choosing rather to speak of privilege than service, 
wrote “The disciple whom Jesus loved, which also 
leaned back on His breast at the supper, and said, 
Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee ?” 

St. John was again with St. Peter at the Beautiful 
Gate, and although it was not he who healed the cripple, 
yet his co-operation is implied in the words, “ Peter, 
fastening his eyes on him, with John.” And when the 
Council would fain have silenced them, the boldness 
which spoke in Peter’s reply was “the boldness of 
Peter and John.” 

Could any series of events justify more perfectly 
a title which implied much zeal, yet zeal that did not 
demand a specific unshared epithet? But these events 
are interwoven with the miraculous narratives. 

Add to this the keenness and deliberation which so 
much of his story exhibits, which at the beginning 
tendered no hasty homage, but followed Jesus to 
examine and to learn, which saw the meaning of the 
orderly arrangment of the graveclothes in the empty 
tomb, which was first to recognise the Lord upon the 
beach, which before this had felt something in Christ's 
regard for the least and weakest, inconsistent with 
the forbidding of any one to cast out devils, and we 


Mark iii. 14-19.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWELVE. 85 





have the very qualities required to supplement those 
of Peter, without being discordant or uncongenial. 
And therefore it is with Peter, even more than with his 
brother, that we have seen John associated. In fact 
Christ, who sent out His apostles by two and two, joins 
these in such small matters as the tracking a man with 
a pitcher into the house where He would keep the 
Passover. And so, when Mary of Magdala would 
announce the resurrection, she found the penitent 
Simon in company with this loving John, comforted, 
and ready to seek the tomb where he met the Lord of 
all Pardons. 

All this is not only coherent, and full of vital force, 
but it also strengthens powerfully the evidence for 
his authorship of the Gospel, written the last, looking 
deepest into sacred mysteries, and comparatively un- 
concerned for the mere flow of narrative, but tender 
with private and loving discourse, with thoughts of 
the protecting Shepherd, the sustaining Vine, the 
Friend Who wept by a grave, Who loved John, Who 
provided amid tortures for His mother, Who knew that 
Peter loved Him, and bade him feed the lambs—and 
yet thunderous as becomes a Boanerges, with indig- 
nation half suppressed against ‘‘the Jews” (so called 
as if he had renounced his murderous nation), against 
the selfish high-priest of ‘‘ that same year,” and against 
the son of perdition, for whom certain astute worldlings 
have surmised that his wrath was such as they best 
understand, personal, and perhaps a little spiteful. 
The temperament of John, revealed throughout, was 
that of August, brooding and warm and hushed and 
fruitful, with low rumblings of tempest in the night. 

It is remarkable that such another family resemblance 
as betweer James and John exists between Peter and 


86 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


Andrew. The directness and self-reliance of his 
greater brother may be discovered in the few incidents 
recorded of Andrew also. At the beginning, and after 
one interview with Jesus, when he finds his brother, 
and becomes the first of the Twelve to spread the 
gospel, he utters the short unhesitating announce- 
ment, ‘ We have found the Messiah.” When Philip 
is uncertain about introducing the Greeks who would 
see Jesus, he consults Andrew, and there is no more 
hesitation, Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And in 
just the same way, when Philip argues that two 
hundred pennyworth of bread are not enough for the 
multitude, Andrew intervenes with practical information 
about the five barley loaves and the two small fishes, 
insufficient although they seem. A man prompt and 
ready, and not blind to the resources that exist because 
they appear scanty. 

Twice we have found Philip mentioned in con- 
junction with him. It was Philip, apparently accosted 
by the Greeks because of his Gentile name, who 
could not take upon himself the responsibility of 
telling Jesus of their wish. And it was he, when 
consulted about the feeding of the five thousand, who 
went off into a calculation of the price of the food 
required—two hundred pennyworth, he says, would 
not suffice. Is it not highly consistent with this slow 
deliberation, that he should have accosted Nathanael 
with a statement so measured and explicit: ‘‘ We have 
found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the pro- 
phets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.” 
What a contrast to Andrew’s terse announcement, “ We © 
have found the Messiah.” And how natural that Philip 
should answer the objection, ‘‘Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth?” with the passionless reason- 


Mark iii. 14-19.] CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWELVE. 87 


able invitation, ‘Come and see.” It was in the same 
unimaginative prosaic way that he said long after, 
“Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” To 
this comparatively sluggish temperament, therefore, 
Jesus Himself had to address the first demand He made 
on any. “ Follow me,” He said, and was obeyed. It 
would not be easy to compress into such brief and inci- 
dental notices a more graphic indication of character. 

Of the others we know little except the names. 
The choice of Matthew, the man of business, is chiefly 
explained by the nature of his Gospel, so explicit, 
orderly, and methodical, and until it approaches the 
crucifixion, so devoid of fire. 

But when we come to Thomas, we are once more 
aware of a defined and vivid personality, somewhat 
perplexed and melancholy, of little hope but settled 
loyalty. 

All the three sayings reported of him belong to a 
dejected temperament: “Let us also go, that we may die 
with Him”—asif there could be no brighter meaning 
than death in Christ’s proposal to interrupt a dead man’s 
sleep. ‘Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and 
how can we know the way?’—these words express 
exactly the same despondent failure to apprehend. 
And so it comes to pass that nothing short of tangible 
experience will convince him of the resurrection. And 
yet there is a warm and devoted heart to be recognised 
in the proposal to share Christ's death, in the yearning 
to know whither He went, and even in that agony of 
unbelief, which dwelt upon the cruel details of suffering, 
until it gave way to one glad cry of recognition and of 
worship; therefore his demand was granted, although 
a richer blessing was reserved for those who, not 
having seen, believed. 


88 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





THE APOSTLE FUDAS. 4 
** And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Ilim.”—MARK iii. 19. 


Tue evidential value of what has been written about 
the apostles will, to some minds, seem to be overborne 
by the difficulties which start up at the name of Judas. 
And yet the fact that Jesus chose him—that awful fact 
which has offended many—is in harmony with all that 
we see around us, with the prodigious powers bestowed 
upon Napoleon and Voltaire, bestowed in full know- 
ledge of the dark results, yet given because the issues 
of human freewill never cancel the trusts imposed on 
human responsibility. Therefore the issues of the 
freewill of Judas did not cancel the trust imposed upon 
his responsibility ; and Jesus acted not on His foree 
knowledge of the future, but on the mighty possi- 
bilities, for good as for evil, which heaved in the bosom 
of the fated man as he stood upon the mountain 
sward. ; 

In the story of Judas, the principles which rule the 
world are made visible. From Adam to this day mer 
have been trusted who failed and fell, and out of thei 
very downfall, but not by precipitating it, the plans of 
God have evolved themselves. 

It is not possible to make such a study of the cha- 
racter of Judas as of some others of the Twelve. A 
traitor is naturally taciturn. No word of his draws 
our attention to the fact that he had gained possession 
of the bag, even though one who had sat at the receipt _ 
of custom might more naturally have become the trea- 
surer. We do not hear his voice above the rest, until 
St. John explains the source of the general discontent, 
which remonstrated against the waste of ointment... He 


Mark iii. 19.] THE APOSTLE JUDAS. 89 


is silent even at the feast, in despite of the words whic 
revealed his guilty secret, until a slow and tardy ques- 
tion is wrung from him, not “Is it I, Lord?” but 
“Rabbi, is it 1?” His influence is like that of a subtle 
poison, not discerned until its effects betray it. 

But many words of Jesus acquire new force and 
energy when we observe that, whatever their drift 
beside, they were plainly calculated to influence and 
warn Iscariot. Such are the repeated and urgent 
warnings against covetousness, from the first parable, 
spoken so shortly after his vocation, which reckons the 
deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things 
among the tares that choke the seed, down to the 
declaration that they who trust in riches shall hardly 
enter the kingdom. Such are the denunciations against 
hypocrisy, spoken openly, as in the Sermon on the 
Mount, or to His own apart, as when He warned them 
of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy, that 
secret vice which was eating out the soul of one among 
them. Such were the opportunities given to retreat 
without utter dishonour, as when He said, “Do ye 
also will to go away? . . . Did I not choose you the 
Twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John vi. 67, 70). 
And such also were the awful warnings given of the 
solemn responsibilities of special privileges. The exalted 
city which is brought down to hell, the salt which is 
trodden under foot, the men Saba sin remained be- 
cause they can claim to see, and still more plainly, the 
first that shall be last, and the man for whom it were 
good that he had not been born,; In many besides the 
last of these, Judas must have felt himself sternly 
because faithfully dealt with. And the exasperation 
which always results from rejected warnings, the sense 
of a presence utterly repugnant to his nature, may 


90 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


have largely cont-ibuted to his final and disastrous 
collapse. 

In the life of Judas there was a mysterious imperson- 
ation of all the tendencies of godless Judaism, and his 
dreadful personality seems to express the whole move- 
ment of the nation which rejected Christ. We see this 
in the powerful attraction felt toward Messiah before 
His aims were understood, in the deadly estrangement 
ind hostility which were kindled by the gentle and 
self-effacing ways of Jesus, in the treachery of Judas 
in the garden and the unscrupulous wilin2ss of the 
priests accusing Christ before the governor, in the 
fierce intensity of rage which turned his hands against 
himself and which destroyed the nation under Titus. 
Nay the very sordidness which made a bargain for 
thirty pieces of silver has ever since been a part of the 
popular conception of the race. We are apt to think 
of a gross love of money as inconsistent with intense 
passion, but in Shylock, the compatriot of Judas, 
Shakespeare combines the two. 

Contemplating this blighted and sinister career, the 
lesson is burnt in upon the conscience, that since Judas 
by transgression fell, no place in the Church of Christ 
can render any man secure. And since, falling, he was 
openly exposed, none may flatter himself that the cause 
of Christ is bound up with his reputation, that the 
mischief must needs be averted which his downfall 
would entail, that Providence must needs avert from 
him the natural penalties of evil-doing. Though one 
was as the signet upon the Lord’s hand, yet was he 
plucked thence. There is no security for any soul 
anywhere except where love and trust repose, upon the 
besom of Christ. 

Now if this be true, and if sin and scandal may con- 


Mark iii. 20-27.] CHRIST AND BEELZEBUB. gI 


ceivably penetrate even the inmost circle of the chosen, 
how great an error is it to break, because of these offences, 
the unity of the Church, and institute some new commu- 
nion, purer far than the Churches of Corinth and Galatia, 
which were not abandoned but reformed, and more 
impenetrable to corruption than the little group of 
those who ate and drank with Jesus, 


CHRIST AND BEELZEBUB. 


* And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so 
n.uch as eat bread. And when his friends heard it, they went out to 
lay hold on Him : for they said, He is beside Himself. And the scribes 
which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and, By the 
prince of the devils casteth He out the devils. And He called them unto 
Him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? 
And ifa kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 
And if an house be divided against itself, that house will not be able to 
stand. And if Satan hath risen up against himself, and is divided, he 
cannot stand, but hath an end. But no one can enter into the house of 
the strong 7zaz, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man ; 
and thea he will spoil his house.” —Mark ili. 20-27 (R.V.). 


Wuite Christ was upon the mountain with His more 
immediate followers, the excitement in the plain did not 
exhaust itself; for even when He entered into a house, 
the crowds prevented Him and His followers from 
taking necessary food. And when His friends heard 
of this, they judged Him as men who profess to have 
learned the lesson of His life still judge, too often, all 
whose devotion carries them beyond the boundaries of 
convention and of convenience. For there is a curious 
betrayal of the popular estimate of this world and the 
world to come, in the honour paid to those who cast 
away life in battle, or sap it slowly in pursuit of wealth 
or honours, and the contempt expressed for those who 
compromise it on behalf of souls, for which Christ died. 


92 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Whenever by exertion in any unselfish cause health 
is broken, or fortune impaired, or influential friends 
estranged, the follower of Christ is called an enthusiast, 
a fanatic, or even more plainly a man of unsettled mind. 
He may be comforted by remembering that Jesus was 
said to be beside Himself when teaching and healing 
left Him not leisure even to eat. 

To this incessant and exhausting strain upon His 
energies and sympathies, St. Matthew applies the 
prophetic words, “ Himself took our infirmities and 
bare our diseases” (viii. 17). And it is worth while 
to compare with that passage and the one before us, 
Renan’s assertion, that He traversed Galilee “‘in the 
midst of a perpetual féte,” and that ‘joyous Galilee 
celebrated in fétes the approach of the well-beloved.” 
(Vie de J., pp. 197, 202). The contrast gives a fine 
illustration of the inaccurate shallowness of the French- 
man’s whole conception of the sacred life. 

But it is remarkable that while His friends could not 
yet believe His claims, and even strove to lay hold on 
Him, no worse suspicion ever darkened the mind of 
those who knew Him best than that His reason had 
been disturbed. Not these called Him gluttonous and 
a winebibber. Not these blasphemed His motives. 
But the envoys of the priestly faction, partisans from 
Jerusalem, were ready with an atrocious suggestion. 
He was Himself possessed with a worse devil, before 
whom the lesser ones retired. By the prince of the 
devils He cast out the devils. To this desperate 
evasion, St. Matthew tells us, they were driven by a 
remarkable miracle, the expulsion of a blind and dumb 
spirit, and the perfect healing of his victim. Now the 
literature of the world cannot produce invective more 
terrible than Jesus had at His command for these very 


Mark iii. 20-27.] CHRIST AND BEELZEBUB. 93 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. This is what gives 
majesty to His endurance. No personal insult, no 
resentment at His own wrong, could ruffle the sublime 
composure which, upon occasion, gave way to a moral 
indignation equally sublime. Calmly He calls His 
traducers to look Him in the face, and appeals to their 
own reason against their blasphemy. Neither kingdom 
nor house divided against itself can stand. And if 
Satan be divided against himself and his evil works, 
undoing the miseries and opening the eyes of men, his 
kingdom has an end. All the experience of the world 
since the beginning was proof enough that such a 
suicide of evil was beyond hope. The best refutation 
of the notion that Satan had risen up against himself 
and was divided was its clear expression. But what 
was the alternative? Ir Satan were not committing 
suicide, he was overpowered. There is indeed a fitful 
temporary reformation, followed by a deeper fall, which 
St. Matthew tells us that Christ compared to the 
cleansing of a house from whence the evil tenant has 
capriciously wandered forth, confident that it is still his 
own, and prepared to return to it with seven other and 
worse fiends. A little observation would detect such 
illusory improvement. But the case before them was 
that of an external summons reluctantly obeyed. It 
required the interference of a stronger power, which 
eculd only be the power of God. None could enter 
inco the strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, unless 
the strong man were first bound, ‘“‘and then he will 
spoil his house.” No more distinct assertion of the 
personality of evil spirits than this could be devised. 
Jesus and the Pharisees are not at all at issue upon this 
point. He does not scout as a baseless superstition 
their belief that evil spirits are at work in the world. 


94 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK, 
But He declares that His own work is the reversal of 
theirs. He is spoiling the strong man, whose terrible 
ascendancy over the possessed resembles the dominion 
of a man in his own house, among chattels without a 
will. 

That dominion Christ declares that only a stronger 
can overcome, and His argument assumes that the 
stronger must needs be the finger of God, the power of 
God, come unto them. The supernatural exists only 
above us and below. 

Ages have passed away since then. Innumerable 
schemes have been devised for the expulsion of the 
evils under which the world is groaning, and if they are 
evils of merely human origin, human power should 
suffice for their removal. The march of civilisation 
is sometimes appealed to. But what blessings has 
civilisation without Christ ever borne to savage men? 
The answer is painful: rum, gunpowder, slavery, 
massacre, small-pox, pulmonary consumption, and the 
extinction of their races, these are all it has been 
able to bestow. Education is sometimes spoken of, as 
if it would gradually heal our passions and expel vice 
and misery from the world, as if the worst crimes and 
most flagrant vices of our time were peculiar to the 
ignorant and the untaught, as if no forger had ever 
learned to write. And sometimes great things are 
promised from the advance of science, as if all the 
works of dynamite and nitro-glycerine, were, like those 
of the Creator, very good. 

No man can be deceived by such flattering hopes, 
who rightly considers the volcanic energies, the frantic 
rage, the unreasoning all-sacrificing recklessness of 
human passions and desires. Surely they are set on 
fire of hell, and only heaven can quench the conflagra- 


Mark iii. 28, 29.] “ETERNAL SIN.” 95 


ticn. Jesus has undertaken to do this. His religion 
has teen a spell of power among the degraded and the 
lost ; and when we come to consider mankind in bulk, 
it is plain enough that no other power has had a really 
reclaiming, elevating effect upon tribes and races. In 
our own land, what great or lasting work of reformation, 
or even of temporal benevolence, has ever gone forward 
without the blessing of religion to sustainit ? Nowhere 
is Satan cast out but by the Stronger than he, binding 
him, overmastering the evil principle which tramples 
human nature down, as the very first step towards 
spoiling his goods. The spiritual victory must precede 
the removal of misery, convulsion and disease. There 
is no golden age for the world, except the reign of 
Christ. 


“ETERNAL SIN.” 


“Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons 
of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme : 
but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never for- 
giveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” —MArK iii. 28, 29 (R.V.). 


Havine first shown that His works cannot be ascribed 
to Satan, Jesus proceeds to utter the most terrible of 
warnings, because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. 

‘‘All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of 
men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall 
blaspheme, but whosoever shall blaspheme against the 
Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an 
eternal sin.” 

What is the nature of this terrible offence? It is 
plain that their slanderous attack lay in the direction o 
it, since they needed warning; and probable that the 
had not yet fallen into the abyss, because they could still 
be warned against it. At least, if the guilt of some had 


96 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





reached that depth, there must have been others in- 
volved in their offence who were still within reach of 
Christ’s solemn admonition. It would seem therefore 
that in saying, ‘‘He casteth out devils by Beelzebub 
... He hath an unclean spirit,” they approached the 
confines and doubtful boundaries between that blas- 
phemy against the Son of man which shall be forgiven, 
and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which hath 
never forgiveness. 

It is evident also that any crime declared by Scrip- 
ture elsewhere to be incurable, must be identical with 
this, however different its guise, since Jesus plainly and 
indisputably announces that all other sins but this 
shall be forgiven. 

Now there are several other passages of the kind. 
St. John bade his disciples to pray, when any saw a 
brother sinning a sin not unto death, “and God will 
give him life for them that sin not unto death. There 
is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that 
he should make request” (1 John v. 16), It is idle to 
suppose that, in the case of this sin unto death, the 
Apostle only meant to leave his disciples free to pray 
or not to pray. If death were not certain, it would 
be their duty, in common charity, to pray. But the 
sin is so vaguely and even mysteriously referred to, 
that we learn little more from that passage than that it 
was an overt public act, of which other men could so 
distinctly judge the flagrancy that from it they should 
withhold their prayers. It has nothing in common 
with those unhappy wanderings of thought or affection 
which morbid introspection broods upon, until it pleads 
guilty to the unpardonable sin, for lapses of which no 
other could take cognizance. And in Christ’s words, 
the very epithet, blasphemy, involves the same public, 


Mark iii. 28, 29.] “ ETERNAL SIN.” 97 


open revolt against good.* And let it be remembered 
that every other sin shall be forgiven. 

There are also two solemn passages in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews (vi. 4-6; x. 26-31). The first of these 
declares that it is impossible for men who once ex- 
perienced all the enlightening and sweet influences of 
God, “and then fell away,” to be renewed again 
unto repentance. But falling upon the road is very 
different from thus falling away, or how could Peter 
have been recovered? Their fall is total apostasy, 
“they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and 
put Him to an open shame.” They are not fruitful 
land in which tares are mingled ; they bear only thorns 
and thistles, and are utterly rejected. And so in the 
tenth chapter, they who sin wilfully are men who 
tread under foot the Son of God, and count the blood 
of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite 
(insult) unto the Spirit of grace. 

Again we read that in the last time there will arise 
an enemy of God so unparalleled that his movement 
will outstrip all others, and be “ ¢he falling away,” and 
he himself will be “the man of sin” and “the son 
of perdition,” which latter title he only shares with Is- 
cariot. Now the essence of his portentous guilt is that 
“he opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is 
called God or that is worshipped” : it is_a-monstrous 
egotism, ‘ “setting | himself forth_as God,” and such 2 
hatred of restraint as makes him “the lawless one” 
(2 Thess. ii, 3~10). 


* “« Theology would have been spared much trouble concerning this 


passage, and anxious timid souls unspeakable anguish, if men had. 


adhered strictly to Christ’s own expression. For it is not @ szz against 
the Iloly Ghost which is here spoken of, but d/aspheny against the 
Holy Ghost.”—Lange ‘‘ Life of Christ,” vol. ii. p. 269. 

Zz 


98 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. ‘ 

So far as these passages are at all definite in their 
descriptions, they are entirely harmonious. They de- 
scribe no sin of the flesh, of impulse, frailty or passion, 
nor yet a spiritual lapse of an unguarded hour, of rash 
speculation, of erring or misled opinion. They speak 
not of sincere failure to accept Christ’s doctrine or to 
recognise His commission, even though it breathe out 
threats and slaughters. They do not even apply to the 
dreadful sin of denying Christ in terror, though one 
should curse and swear, saying, I know not the man, 
They speak of a deliberate and conscious rejection of 
good and choice of evil, of the wilful aversion of the 
soul from sacred influences, the public denial and 
trampling under foot of Christ, the opposing of all that 
is called God. te 

And acomparison cf these passages enables us to 
understand why this sin never can be pardoned. It is 
because good itself has become the food and fuel of 
its wickedness, stirring up its opposition, calling out 
its rage, that the apostate cannot be renewed again 
unto repentance. The sin is rather indomitable than 
unpardonable: it has become part of the sinner’s 
personality ; it is incurable, an eternal sin. 

Here is nothing to alarm any mourner whose con- 
trition proves that it has actually been possible to 
enew him unto repentance. No penitent has ever yet 
been rejected for this guilt, for no penitent has ever 
been thus guilty. 

And this being so, here is the strongest possible 
encouragement for all who desire mercy. Every other 
sin, every other blasphemy shall be forgiven. Heaven 
does not reject the vilest whom the world hisses at, 
the most desperate and bloodstained whose life the 
world exacts in vengeance for his outrages. None is 





Mark iii. 31-35.] THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 99 





lost but the hard and impenitent heart which treasures 
up for itself wrath against the day of wrath. 


THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 


“ And there come His mother and His brethren ; and, standing with- 

out, they sent unto Him, calling Him. And a multitude was sitting 
about Him ; and they say unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy 
brethren without seek for Thee. And He answereth them, and saith, 
Who is My mother and My brethren? And looking round on tiem 
which sat round about Him He saith, Behold My mother and My 
brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My 
brother, and sister, and mother.” — MARK iii. 31-35 (Kk. V.). 
WE have lately read that the relatives of Jesus, hearing 
of His self-sacrificing devotion, sought to lay hold on 
Him, because they said, He is beside Himself. Their 
concern would not be lightened upon hearing of His 
rupture with the chiefs of their religion and their nation. 
And so it was, that while a multitude hung upon His 
lips, some unsympathizing critic, or perhaps some hostile 
scribe, interrupted Him with their message. They 
desired to speak with Him, possibly with rude inten- 
tions, while in any case, to grant their wish might 
easily have led to a painful altercation, offending weak 
disciples, and furnishing a scandal to His eager foes. 

Their interference must have caused the Lord a 
bitter pang. It was sad that they were not among His 
hearers, but worse that they should seek to mar His 
work. To Jesus, endowed with every innocent human 
instinct, worn with labour and aware of gathering 
perils, they were an offence of the same kind as 
Peter made himself when he became the mouthpicce o: 
the tempter. For their own sakes, whose faith He was 
yet to win, it was needful to be very firm. Moreover, 
He was soon to make it a law of the kingdom that men 


100 GOSPEL OF ST. MAPK. 

should be ready for His sake to leave brethren, or 
sisters, or mother, and in so doing should receive back 
all these a hundredfold in the present time (x. 29, 30). 
To this law it was now His own duty to conform. 
Yet it was impossible for Jesus to be harsh and stern 
to a group of relatives with His mother in the midst of 
them; and it would be a hard problem for the finest 
dramatic genius to reconcile the conflicting claims of 
the emergency, fidelity to God and the cause, a striking 
rebuke to the officious interference of His kinsfolk, and 
a full and affectionate recognition of the relationship 
which could not make Him swerve. How shall He 
“leave” His mother and his brethren, and yet not 
deny His heart? How shall He be strong without 
being harsh ? 

Jesus reconciles all the conditions of the problem, 
as pointing to His attentive hearers, He pronounces 
these to be His true relatives, but yet finds no warmer 
term to express what He feels for them than the dear 
names of mother, sisters, brethren. 

Observers whose souls were not warmed as He 
spoke, may have supposed that it was cold indifference 
to the calls of nature which allowed His mother and 
brethren to stand without. In truth, it was not that 
He denied the claims of the flesh, but that He was 
sensitive to other, suotler, profounder claims of the 
spirit and spiritual kinship. He would not carelessly 
wound a mother’s or a brother’s heart, but the life 
Divine had also its fellowships and its affinities, and 
still less could He throw these aside. No cold sense of 
duty detains Him with His congregation while affection 
seeks Him in the vestibule; no, it is a burning love, 
the love of a brother or even of a son, which binds 
Him to His people. 


Mark iii. 31-35.] THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 101 

Happy are they who are in suchacase. And Jesus 
gives us a ready means of knowing whether we are 
among those whom He so wonderfully condescends to 
Jove. “ Whosoever shall do the will of My Father 
which is in heaven.” Feelings may ebb, and self- 
confidence may be shaken, but obedience depends not 
upon excitement, and may be rendered by a breaking 
heart. 

It is important to observe that this saying declares 
that obedience does not earn kinship; but only proves 
it, as the fruit proves the tree. Kinship must go 
before acceptable service; none can do the will of the 
Father who is not already the kinsman cf Jesus, for 
He says, Whosoever shall (hevea/ter) do the will of My 
Father, the same is (a/ready) My brother and sister and 
mother. There are men who would fain reverse the 
process, and do God’s will in order to merit the 
brotherhood of Jesus. They would drill themselves 
and win battles for Him, in order to be enrolled among 
His soldiers. They would accept the gospel invitation 
as soon as they refute the gospel warnings that without 
Him they can do nothing, and that they need the 
creation of a new heart and the renewal of a right spirit 
within them. But when homage was offered to Jesus as 
a Divine teacher and no more, He rejoined, Teaching is 
not what is required : holiness does not result from mere 
enlightenment: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except 
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God. Because the new birth is the condition of all 
spiritual power and energy, it follows that if any man 
shall henceforth do God’s will, he must already be of 
the family of Christ. 

Men may avoid evil through self-respect, from early 
training and restraints of conscience, from temporal 


192 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





prudence or dread of the future. And this is virtuous 
only as the paying of a fire-insurance is so. But 
secondary motives will never lift any man so high as 
to satisfy this sublime standard, the doing of the will 
of the Father. That can only be attained, like all true 
and glorious service in every cause, by the heart, by 
enthusiasm, by love. And Jesus was bound to all who 
loved His Father by as strong a cord as united His 
perfect heart with brother and sister and mother. 

But as there is no true obedience without relationship, 
so is there no true relationship unfollowed by obe- 
dience. Christ was not content to say, Whoso doeth 
God’s will is My kinsman: He asked, Who is My 
kinsman ? and gave this as an exhaustive reply. He 
has none other. Every sheep in His fold hears His 
voice and follows Him. We may feel keen emotions as 
we listen to passionate declamations, or kneel in an 
excited prayer-meeting, or bear our part in an imposing 
ritual ; we may be moved to tears by thinking of th= 
dupes of whatever heterodoxy we most condemn ; 
tender and soft emotions may be stirred in our bosom 
by the story of the perfect life and Divine death of 
Jesus; and yet we may be as far from a renewed 
heart as was that ancient tyrant from genuine com- 
passion, who wept over the brevity of the lives of the 
soldiers whom he sent into a wanton war. 

Mere feeling is not life. It moves truly; but only 
as a balloon moves, rising by virtue of its emptiness, 
drive. about by every blast that veers, and sinking 
when its inflation is atan end. But mark the: living 
creature poised on widespread wings ; it has a will, an 
inteition, and an initiative, and as long as its life is 
healthy and unenslaved, it moves at its own good 
pleasure. How shall I know whether ar not I am 


Mark iii. 31-35.] THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 103 





a true kinsman of the Lord? By seeing whether 
I advance, whether I work, whether ] have real and 
practical zeal and love, or whether I have grown cold, 
and make more allowance for the flesh than I used to 
do, and expect less from the spirit. Obedience does 
not produce grace. But it proves it, for we can no 
more bear fruit except we abide in Christ, than the 
branch that does not abide in the vine. 

Lastly, we observe the individual love, the personal 
affection of Christ for each of His people. There is 
a love for masses of men and philanthropic causes, 
which does not much observe the men who compose 
the masses, and upon whom the causes depend. Thus, 
one may love his country, and rejoice when her 
flag advances, without much care for any soldier who 
has been shot down, or has won promotion. And so 
we think of Africa or India, without really feeling 
much about the individual Egyptian or Hindoo. Who 
can discriminate and feel for each one of the mul- 
titudes included in such a word as Want, or Sickness, 
or Heathenism? And judging by our own frailty, we 
are led to think that Christ’s love can mean but little 
beyond this. As a statesman who loves the nation 
may be said, in some vague way, to love and care for 
me, so people think of Christ as loving and pitying 
us because we are items in the race He loves. But 
He has eyes and a heart, not only for all, but for 
each one. Looking down the shadowy vista of the 
generations, every sigh, every broken heart, every 
blasphemy, is a separate pang to His all-embracing 
heart. ‘‘ Before that Philip called thee, when thou 
wast under the fig-tree, I saw ¢hee,” lonely, unconscious, 
undistinguished .drop in the tide of life, one leaf among 
the myriads which rustle and fall in the vast forest of 


104 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


existence. St. Paul speaks truly of Christ “ Who loved 
me, and gave Himself for me.” He shall bring every 
secret sin to judgment, and shall we so far wrong Him 
as to think His justice more searching, more penetra- 
ting, more individualizing than His love, His memory 
than His heart? It is not so, The love He offers 
adapts itself to every age and sex: it distinguishes 
brother from sister, and sister again from mother. It 
is mindful of “the least of these My >rethren.” But 
it names no Father except One, 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE PARABLES. 


“And again He began to teach by the sea side. And there fs 
gathered unto Him a very great multitude, so that He entered intoa 
boat, and sat in the sea; and all the multitude were by the sea on the 
land. And He taught them many things in parables, and said unto 
them in His teaching... . 

“And when He was alone, they that were about Him with the 
twelve asked of Him the parables. And He said unto them, Unto you 
is given the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are 
without, all things are done in parables : that seeing they may see, and 
not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand ; lest 
haply they should turn again, and it should be forgiven them. And 
He saith unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how shall ye know 
all the parables ? »—Mark iv. I, 2, 10-13 (R.V.). 


S opposition deepened, and to a vulgar ambition, 
the temptation to retain disciples by all means 
would have become greater, Jesus began to teach in 
parables. We know that He had not hitherto done so, 
both by the surprise of the Twelve, and by the necessity 
which He found, of giving them a clue to the meaning 
of such teachings, and so to “all the parables.” His 
own ought to have understood. But He was merciful 
to the weakness which confessed its failure and asked 
for instruction. 
And yet He foresaw that they which were without 
would discern n> spiritual meaning in such discourse. 
It was to have, at the same time, a revealing and a 


106 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





baffling effect, and therefore it was peculiarly suitable 
for the purposes of a Teacher watched by vindictive 
foes. Thus, when cross-examined about His author- 
ity by men who themselves professed to know not 
whence John’s baptism was, He could refuse to be 
entrapped, and yet tell of One Who sent His own 
Son, His Beloved, to receive the fruit of the vine- 
yard. 

This diverse effect is derived from the very nature of 
the parables of Jesus. They are not, like some in the 
Old Testament, mere fables, in which things occur that 
never happen in real life. Jotham’s trees seeking a 
king, are as incredible as AZsop’s fox leaping for grapes. 
But Jesus never uttered a parable which was not true 
to nature, the kind of thing which one expects to 
happen. We cannot say that a rich man in hell actually 
spoke to Abraham in heaven. But if he could do so, of 
which we are not competent to judge, we can well be- 
lieve that he would have spoken just what we read, and 
that his pathetic cry, “ Father Abraham,” would have 
been as gently answered, “ Son, remember.” There is 
no ferocity in the skies; neither has the lost soul 
become a fiend. Everything commends itself to our 
judgment. And therefore the story not only illustrates, 
but appeals, enforces, almost proves. 

God in nature does not arrange that all seeds should 
grow : men have patience while the germ slowly fructi- 
fies, they know not how; in all things but religion such 
sacrifices are made, ihat the merchant sells all to buy 
one goodly pearl; an earthly father kisses his repentant 
prodigal ; and even a Samaritan can be neighbour to a 
Jew in his extremity. So the world is constructed : 
such is even the fallen human heart. [s it not reason- 
able to believe that the same principles will extend 


Mark iv. 1, 2; 10-13.] THE PARABLES. 107 





farther ; that as God governs the world of matter so He 
may govern the world of spirits, and that human help- 
fulness and clemency will not outrun the graces of the 
Giver of all good ? 

This is the famous argument from analogy, applied 
long before the time of Butler, to purposes farther- 
reaching than his. But there is this remarkable 
difference, that the analogy is never pressed, men are 
left to discover it for themselves, or at least, to ask for 
an explanation, because they are conscious of some- 
thing beyond the tale, something spiritual, something 
which they fain would understand. 

Now this difference is not a mannerism ; it is intended. 
Butler pressed home his analogies because he was 
striving to silence gainsayers. His Lord and ours le't 
men to discern or to be blind, because they had already 
opportunity to become His disciples if they would. The 
faithful among them ought to be conscious, or at least 
they should now become conscious, of the God of grace 
in the God of nature. To them the world should be 
eloquent of the Father's mind. They should indeed 
find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
sermons in stones. He spoke to the sensitive mind, 
which would understand Him, as a wife reads her 
husband’s secret joys and sorrows by signs no stranger 
can understand. Even if she fails to comprehend, she 
knows there is something to ask about. And thus, when 
they were alone, the Twelve asked Him of the parables. 
When they were instructed, they gained not only the 
moral lesson, and the sweet pastoral narrative, the idyllic 
picture which conveyed it, but also the assurance im- 
parted by recognizing the same mind of God which is 
revealed in His world, or justified by the best impulses 
of humanity. Therefore, no parable is sensational. 


108 GOSPEL OF $7. MARK. 





It cannot root itself in the exceptional, the abnormal 
events on which men do not reckon, which come upon 
us with a shock. For we do not argue from these to 
daily life. 

But while this mode of teaching was profitable to 
His disciples, and protected Him against His foes, it 
had formidable consequences for the frivolous empty 
followers after a sign. Because they were such they 
could only find frivolity and lightness in these stories ; 
the deeper meaning lay farther below the surface than 
such eyes could pierce. Thus the light they had abused 
was taken from them. And Jesus explained to His 
disciples that, in acting thus, He pursued the fixed rule 
of God. The worst penalty of vice is that it loses the 
knowledge of virtue, and of levity that it cannot ap- 
preciate seriousness, He taught in parables, as Isaiah 
prophesied, “that seeing they may see, and not per- 
ceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand; 
lest haply they should turn again and it should be 
forgiven them.” These last words prove how completely 
penal, how free from all caprice, was this terrible 
decision of our gentle Lord, that precautions must be 
taken against evasion of the consequences of crime. 
But itis a warning by no means unique. He said, “The 
things which make for thy peace. . . are hid from thine 
eyes” (Luke xix. 42). And St. Paul said, “If our 
gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing”; 
and still more to the point, ‘The natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish- 
ness unto him; and he cannot know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned” (2 Cor. iv. 3; 1 Cor. 
ii. 14). To this law Christ, in speaking by parables, 
was conscious that He conformed. 

But now let it be observed how completely this 


Mark iv. 3-9, 14-20.] THE SOWER. 109 


mode of teaching suited our Lord’s habit of mind. If 
men could finally rid themselves of His Divine claim, 
they would at once recognise the greatest of the sages; 
and they would also find in Him the sunniest, sweetest 
and most accurate discernment of nature, and its more 
quiet beauties, that ever became a vehicle for moral 
teaching. The sun and rain bestowed on the evil and 
the good, the fountain and the trees which regulate the 
waters and the fruit, the death of the seed by which 
it buys its increase, the provision for bird and blossom 
without anxiety of theirs, the preference for a lily over 
Solomon’s gorgeous robes, the meaning of a red sky 
at sunrise and sunset, the hen gathering her chickens 
under her wing, the vine and its branches, the sheep 
and their shepherd, the lightning seen over all the 
sky, every one of these needed only to be re-set and 
it would have become a parable. 

All the Gospels, including the fourth, are full of 
proofs of this rich and attractive endowment, this 
Warm sympathy with nature; and this fact is among 
the evidences that they all drew the same character, 
and drew it faithfully. 


THE SOWER, 


“‘Hearken: Behold the sower went forth to sow: and it came to 
pass, as he sowed, some seed fell by the way side, and the birds came 
and devoured it. And other fell on the rocky ground, where it had 
not much earth ; and straightway it sprang up, because it had no deep- 
ness of earth: and when the sun was risen, it wasscorched ; and because 
it had no root, it withered away. And other fell among the thorns, 
and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And 
others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and 
increasing ; and brought forth, thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hun- 
dredfold. And He said, Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. . 

“‘The sower soweththe word. And these are they by the vay side, 


110 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK. 





where the word is sown ; and when they have heard, straightway cometh 
Satan, and taketh away the word which hath been sown in them. And 
these in like manner are they that are sown upon the rocky Places, 
who, when they have heard the word, straightway receive it with joy; 
and they kave no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, 
when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway 
they stumble. And others are they that are sown among the thorns; 
these are they that have heard the word, and the cares of the world, and 
the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, 
choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. And those are they that 
were sown upon the good ground ; such as hear the word, and accept 
it, and bear fruit, thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold,”—Mark 
iv. 3-9, 14-20 (R.V.). 


“ HEARKEN” Jesus said; willing to caution men against 
the danger of slighting His simple story, and to impress 
on them that it conveyed more than met their ears. 
In so doing He protested in advance against fatalistic 
abuses of the parable, as if we were already doomed 
to be hard, or shallow, or thorny, or fruitful soil. And 
at the close He brought out still more clearly His 
protest against such doctrine, by impressing upon all, 
that if the vitalising seed were the imparted word, it 
was their part to receive and treasure it. Indolence 
and shallowness must fail to bear fruit: that is the 
essential doctrine of the parable; but it is not neces- 
sary that we should remain indolent or shallow: “ He 
that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” 

And when the Epistle to the Hebrews reproduces 
the image of land which bringeth forth thorns and 
thistles, our Revised Version rightly brings out the 
fact, on which indeed the whole exhortation depends, 
that the same piece of land might have borne herbs 
meet for these for whose sake it is tilled (vi. 7). 

Having said ‘Hearken,” Jesus added, “ Behold.” 
It has been rightly inferred that the scene was before 


Mark iv.3-9, 14-20.] TE, SO ahs in 


their eyes. Very possibly some such process was 
within sight of the shore on which they were gathered; 
but in any case, a process was visible, if they would 
but see, of which the tilling of the ground was only a 
type. A nobler seed was being scattered for a vaster 
harvest, and it was no common labourer, but the true 
sower, who went forth to sow. “The sower soweth 
the word.” But who was he? St. Matthew tells us 
“the sower is the Son of man,” and whether the words 
were expressly uttered, or only implied, as the silence 
of St. Mark and St. Luke might possibly suggest, it is 
clear that none of His disciples could mistake His 
meaning. Ages have passed and He is the sower still, 
by whatever instrument He works, for we are God’s 
husbandry as well as God’s building. And the seed is 
the Word of God, so strangely able to work below the 
surface of human life, invisible at first, yet vital, and 
grasping from within and without, from secret thoughts 
and from circumstances, as from the chemical ingredients 
of the soil and from the sunshine and the shower, all 
that will contribute to its growth, until the field itself 
is assimilated, spread from end to end with waving 
ears, a corn-field now. This is why Jesus in His 
second parable did not any longer say ‘‘the seed is 
the word,” but ‘the good seed are the sons of the 
kingdom” (Matt. xiii. 38). The word planted was able 
tc identify itself with the heart. 

And this seed, the Word of God, is sown broadcast 
as all our opportunities are given. A talent was not 
refused to him who buried it. Judas was an apostle. 
Men may receive the grace of God in vain, and this in 
more ways than one. On some it produces no vital 
impression whatever ; it lies on the surface of a mind 
which the feet of earthly interests have trodden hard, 


112 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





There is no chance for it to expand, to begin its opera- 
tion by sending out the smallest tendrils to grasp, to 
appropriate anything, to take root. And it may well be 
doubted whether any soul, wholly indifferent to religious 
truth, ever retained even its theoretic knowledge long. 
The foolish heart is darkened. The fowls of the air 
catch away for ever the priceless seed of* eternity. 
Now it is of great importance to observe how Jesus 
explained this calamity. We should probably have 
spoken of forgetfulness, the fading away of neglected 
impressions, or at most of some judicial act of provi- 
dence hiding the truth from the careless. But Jesus 
said, “straightway cometh Satan and taketh away the 
word which hath been sown in them.” No person 
can fairly explain this text away, as men have striven 
to explain Christ’s language to the demoniacs, by 
any theory of the use of popular language, or the 
toleration of harmless notions. The introduction of 
Satan into this parable is unexpected and uncalled for 
by any demand save one, the necessity of telling all 

the truth. It is true therefore that an active and 
deadly enemy of souls is at work to quicken the 
mischief which neglect and indifference would them- 
selves produce, that evil processes are helped from 
beneath as truly as good ones from above; that the 
seed which is left to-day upon the surface may be 
maliciously taken thence long before it would have 
perished by natural decay; that men cannot reckon 
upon stopping short in their contempt of grace, since 
what they neglect the devil snatches quite away from 
them. And as seed is only safe from fowls when 
buried in the soil, so is the word of life only safe 
against the rapacity of hell when it has sunk down 
into our hearts. 


Mark iv. 3-9, 14-20.] THE SOWER. 113 

In the story of the early Church, St. Paul sowed 
upon such ground as this in Athens. Men who 
spent their time in the pursuit of artistic and cultivated 
novelties, in hearing and telling some new thing, 
mocked the gospel, or at best proposed to hear its 
preacher yet again. How long did such a purpose 
last ? 

But there are other dangers to dread, besides abso- 
lute indifference to truth.. And the first of these is a 
too shallow and easy acquiescence. The message of 
salvation is designed to affect the whole of human life 
profoundly. It comes to bind a strong man armed, it 
summons easy and indifferent hearts to wrestle against 
Spiritual foes, to crucify the flesh, to die daily. On 
these conditions it offers the noblest blessings. But 
the conditions are grave and sobering. If one hears 
them without solemn and earnest searching of heart, 
he has only, at the best, apprehended half the message. 
Christ has warned us that we cannot build a tower 
without sitting down to count our means, nor fight 
a hostile king without reckoning the prospects of 
invasion. And it is very striking to compare the 
gushing and impulsive sensationalism of some modern 
schools, with the deliberate and circumspect action of 
St. Paul, even after God had been pleased miraculously 
to reveal His Son in him. He went into seclusion, 
He returned to Damascus to his first instructor. Four- 
teen years afterwards he deliberately laid his gospel 
before the Apostles, lest by any means he should be 
running or had run in vain. Such is the action of one 
penetrated with a sense of reality and responsibility in 
his decision ; it is not the action likely to result from 
teaching men that it suffices to “say you believe” and 
to be “‘made happy.” And in this parable, our Saviour 

8 


114 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





has given striking expression to His judgment of the 
school which relies upon mere happiness. Next to 
those who leave the seed for Satan to snatch away, 
He places them “ who, when they have heard the word, 
straightway receive it with joy.” They have taken the 
promises without the precepts, they have hoped for 
the crown without the cross. Their type is the thin 
layer of earth spread over a shelf of rock. The water, 
which cannot sink down, and the heat reflected up 
from the stone, make it for a time almost a hot bed. 
Straightway the seed sprang up, because it had no 
deepness of earth. But the moisture thus detained 
upon the surface vanished utterly in time of drought; 
the young roots, unable to penetrate to any deeper 
supplies, were scorched ; and it withered away. That 
superficial heat and moisture was impulsive emotion, 
glad to hear of heaven, and love, and privilege, but 
forgetful to mortify the flesh, and to be partaker with 
Christ in His death. The roots of a real Christian life 
must strike deeper down. Consciousness of sin and 
its penalty and of the awful price by which that 
penalty has been paid, consciousness of what life 
should have been and how we have degraded it, 
consciousness of what it must yet be made by grace 
—these do not lead to joy so immediate, so impulsive, 
as the growth of this shallow vegetation. A mature 
and settled joy is among “the fruits of the spirit:” it 
is not the first blade that shoots up. 

Now because the sense of sin and duty and atonement 
have not done their sobering work, the feelings, so easily 
quickened, are also easily perverted : “ When tribulation 
or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway 
they stumble.” These were notcounted upon. Neither 
trouble of mind nor opposition of wicked men was 


Mark iv. 3-9, 14-20.] THE SOWER. 115 





included in the holiday scheme of the life Divine. And 
their pressure is not counter-weighted by that of any 
deep convictions. The roots have never penetrated 
farther than temporal calamities and trials can reach. 
In the time of drought they have wot enough. They 
endure, but only for a while. 

St. Paul sowed upon just such soil in Galatia. There 
his hearers spoke of such blessedness that they would 
have plucked out their eyes for him. But he became 
their enemy because he told them all the truth, when 
only a part was welcome. And as Christ said, Straight- 
way they stumble, so St. Paul had to marvel that they 
were so soon subverted. 

If indifference be the first danger, and shallowness 
the second, mixed motive is the third. Men there are 
who are very earnest, and far indeed from slight views 
of truth, who are nevertheless in sore danger, because 
they are equally earnest about other things; because 
they cannot resign this world, whatever be their 
concern about the next; because the soil of their life 
would fain grow two inconsistent harvests. Like seed 
sown among thorns, “‘choked” by their entangling 
roots and light-excluding growths, the word in such 
hearts, though neither left upon a hard surface nor 
forbidden by rock to strike deep into the earth, 
is overmastered by an unworthy rivalry. A kind 
of vegetation it does produce, but not such as the 
tiller seeks: the word becometh unfruitful. It is 
the same lesson as when Jesus said, “ No man can 
serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and 
mammon.” 

Perhaps it is the one most needed in our time of 
feverish religious controversy and heated party spirit, 
when every one hath a teaching, hath a revelation, 


116 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK, 


hath a tongue, hath an interpretation, but scarcely 
any have denied the world and taken in exchange a 
cross, 

St. Paul found a thorny soil in Corinth which came 
behind in no gift, if only gifts had been graces, but 
was indulgent, factious and selfish, puffed up amid 
flagrant vices, one hungry and another drunken, while 
wrangling about the doctrine of the resurrection. 

The various evils of this parable are all of them 
worldliness, differently manifested. The deadening 
effect of habitual forgetfulness of God, treading the soil 
so hard that no seed can enter it ; the treacherous effect 
of secret love of earth, a buried obstruction refusing to 
admit the gospel into the recesses of the life, however 
it may reach the feelings; and the fierce and stubborn 
competition of worldly interests, wherever they are 
not resolutely weeded out, against these Jesus spoke 
His earliest parable. And it is instructive to review 
the foes by which He represented His Gospel as warred 
upon. The personal activity of Satan ; “‘ tribulation or 
persecution” from without, and within the heart “cares” 
rather for self than for the dependent and the poor, 
“ deceitfulness of riches” for those who possess enough 
to trust in, or to replace with a fictitious importance 
the only genuine value, which is that of character 
(although men are still esteemed for being “worth” a 
round sum, a strange estimate, to be made by Chris- 
tians, of a being with a soul burning in him); and alike 
for rich and poor, “the lusts of other things,” since 
none is too poor to covet, and nore so rich that his 
desires shall not increase, like some diseases, by being 
fed. 

Lastly, we have those on the good ground, who are 
not described by their sensibilities or their enjoyments, 


Mark iv. 3-9, 14-20.] THE SOWER, 117 
but by their loyalty. They “hear the word and accept 
it and bear fruit.” To accept is what distinguishes 
them alike from the wayside hearers into whose atten- 
tion the word never sinks, from the rocky hearers 
who only receive it with a superficial welcome, and 
from the thorny hearers who only give it a divided 
welcome. It is not said, as if the word were merely 
the precepts, that they obey it. The sower of this 
seed is not he who bade the soldier not to do vio- 
lence, and the publican not to extort: it is He who 
said, Repent, and believe the gospel. He implanted 
new hopes, convictions, and affections, as the germ 
which should unfold in a new life. And the good 
fruit is borne by those who honestly ‘‘accept” His 
word. 

Fruitfulness is never in the gospel the condition by 
which life is earned, but it is always the test by which 
to prove it. In all the accounts of the final judgment, 
we catch the principle of the bold challenge of St. 
James, “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I 
will show thee my faith by my works.” The talent 
must produce more talents, and the pound more 
pounds ; the servant must have his loins girt and a 
light in his hand; the blessed are they who did unto 
Jesus the kindness they did unto the least of His 
brethren, and the accursed are they who did it not to 
Jesus in His people. 

We aye not wrong in preaching that honest faith in 
Christ is the only condition of acceptance, and the way 
to obtain strength for good works. But perhaps we 
fail to add, with sufficient emphasis, that good works 
are the only sufficient evidence of real faith, of genuine 
conversion. Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened and 
who constrained the Apostle to abide in her house, was, 


118 GOSFEL OF S71. MARK, 





converted as truly as the gaoler who passed through all 
the vicissitudes of despair, trembling and astonishment, 
and belief. 

“They bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and an 
hundredfold.” And all are alike accepted. But the 
parable of the pounds shows that all are not alike re- 
warded, and in equal circumstances superior efficiency 

wins a superior prize. One star differeth from another 
' star in giory, and they who turn many to righteousness 
shall shine as the sun for ever. 


LAMP AND STAND. 


*¢ And He said unto them, Is the lamp brought to be put under the 
bushel. or under the bed? and not to be put on the stand? For there 
is nothing hid, save that it should be manifested ; neither was anything 
made secret, but that it should come to light. If any man hath ears to 
hear, let him hear, And He said unto them, Take heed what ye hear : 
with what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you: and more 
shall be given unto you. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and 
he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he 
hath.”—Mark iv. 21-25 (R. V.). 


Jesus had now taught that the only good ground was 
that in which the good seed bore fruit. And He adds 
explicitly, that men receive the truth in order to spread 
it, and are given grace that they may become, in turn, 
good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 

“Is the lamp brought to be put under the bushel or 
under the bed, and not to be put on the stand?” The 
language may possibly be due, as men have argued, 
to the simple conditions of life among the Hebrew 
peasantry, who possessed only one lamp, one corn- 
measure, and perhaps one bed. All the greater marvel 
is it that amid such surroundings He should have 
announced, and not in vain, that His disciples, His 


bs 


Mark iv. 21-25.] LAMP AND STAND. rI9 
Church, should become the light of all humanity, “the 
lamp.” Already He had put forward the same claim 
even more explicitly, saying, ‘Ye are the light of the 
world.” And in each case, He spoke not in the intoxi- 
cation of pride or self-assertion, but in all gravity, ard 
as a solemn warning. The city on the hill could not be 
hid. The lamp would burn dimly under the bed; it 
would be extinguished entirely by the bushel. Publi- 
city is the soul of religion, since religion is light. It is 
meant to diffuse itself, to be, as He expressed it, like 
leaven which may be hid at first, but cannot be con- 
cealed, since it will leaven all the lump. And so, if He 
spoke in parables, and consciously hid His meaning by 
so doing, this was not to withdraw His teaching from 
the masses, it was to shelter the flame which should 
presently illuminate all the house. Nothing was hid, 
save that it should be manifested, nor made secret, but 
that it should come to light. And it has never been 
otherwise. Our religion has no privileged inner circle, 
no esoteric doctrine ; and its chiefs, when men glorified 
one or another, asked, What then is Apollos? And 
what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed. 
Agents only, for conveying to others what they had 
received from God. And thus He Who now spoke 
in parables, and again charged them not to make 
Him known, was able at the end to say, In secret 
have I spoken nothing. Therefore He repeats with 
emphasis His former words, frequent on His lips 
henceforward, and ringing through the messages He 
spoke in glory to His Churches. If any man hath 
ears to hear, let him hear. None is excluded but 
by himself. 

Yet another caution follows. Ifthe seed be the Word, 
there is sore danger from false teaching ; from strewing 


120 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK 





the ground with adulterated grain. St. Mark, indeed, 
has not recorded the Parable of the Tares. But there 
are indications of it, and the same thought is audible 
in this saying, ‘‘ Take heed what ye hear.” The added 
words are a little surprising: “‘ With what measure ye 
mete it shall be measured unto you, and more shall be 
given unto you.” The last clause expresses exactly 
the principle on which the forfeited pound was given to 
Him who had ten pounds already, the open hand of 
God lavishing additional gifts upon him who was 
capable of using them. But does not the whole state- 
ment seem to follow more suitably upon a command to 
beware what we teach, and thus “‘ mete” to others, than 
what we hear? A closer examination finds in this 
apparent unfitness, a deeper harmony of thought. To 
“accept” the genuine word is the same as to bring 
forth fruit for God; it is to reckon with the Lord of 
the talents, and to yield the fruit of the vineyard. And 
this is to ‘‘ mete,” not indeed unto man, but unto God, 
Who shows Himself froward with the froward, and 
from him that hath not, whose possession is below his 
accountability, takes away even that he hath, but gives 
exceeding abundantly above all they ask or think to 
those who have, who are not disobedient to the heavenly 
calling. 

All this is most delicately connected with what pre- 
cedes it; and the parables, hiding the truth from 
some, giving it authority, and colour, and effect to 
others, were a striking example of the process here 
announced. 

Never was the warning to be heedful what we hear, 
more needed than at present. Men think themselves 
free to follow any teacher, especially if he be eloquent, 
to read any book, if only it be in demand, and to dis- 


Mark iv. 26-29.] ZHE SEED GRCWING SECRETLY. 121 





cuss any theory, provided it be fashionable, while 
perfectly well aware that they are neither earnest 
inquirers after truth, nor qualified champions against 
its assailants. For what then do they read and 
hear? For the pleasure of a rounded phrase, or to 
augment the prattle of conceited ignorance in a 
drawing-room. 

De we wonder when these players with edged tools 
injure -hemselves, and become perverts or agnostics ? 
It would be more wonderful if they remained unhurt, 
since Jesus said, ‘‘ Take heed what ye hear ... from 
him that hath not shall be taken even that he hath.” 
A rash and uninstructed exposure of our intellects to 
evil influences, is meting to God with an unjust measure, 
as really as a wilful plunge into any other temptation, 
since we are bidden to cleanse ourselves from all de- 
filement of the spirit as well as of the flesh. 


THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY. 


‘¢ And He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast 
seed upon the earth ; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the 
seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. The earih 
beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the 
sickle, because the harvest is come.” —MaRK iv. 26-29 (R.V.). 


St. Mark alone records this parable of a sower who 
sleeps by night, and rises for other business by day, 
and knows not how the seed springs up. That is not 
the sower’s concern: all that remains for him is to put 
forth the sickle when the harvest is come. 

It is a startling parable for us who believe in the 
fostering care of the Divine Spirit. And the paradox 
is forced on our attention by the words “‘the earth 
beareth frut of herself,” contrasting strangely as it 


122 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


does with such other, assertions, as that the branch _ 
cannot bear fruit of itself, that without Christ we 
can do nothing, and that when we live it is not we but 
Christ who liveth in us. 

It will often help us to understand a paradox if we 
can discover another like it. And exactly such an one 
as this will be found in the record of creation. God 
rested on the seventh day from all His work, yet we 
know that His providence never slumbers, that by 
Him all things consist, and that Jesus defended His 
own work of healing on a Sabbath day by urging that 
the Sabbath of God was occupied in gracious provision 
for His world. “ My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work.” Thus the rest of God from creative work 
says nothing about His energies in that other field of 
providential care. Exactly so Jesus here treats only 
of what may be called the creative spiritual work, the 
deposit of the seed of life. And the essence of this 
remarkable parable is the assertion that we are to expect 
an ‘orderly, quiet and gradual development from this — 
principle of life, not a series of communications from 
without, of additional revelations, of semi-miraculous 
interferences. The life of grace is a natural process 
in the supernatural sphere. In one sense it is all 
of God, who maketh His sun to rise, and sendeth 
rain, without which the earth could bear no fruit of 
herself. In anether sense we must work out our own 
salvation all the more earnestly because it is God 
that worketh in us. 

Now this parable, thus explained, has been proved 
true in the wonderful history of the Church. She has 
grown, not only in extent but by development, as 
marvellously as a corn of wheat which is now a waving 
wheat-stem with its ripening ear. When Cardinal 


Mark iv. 26-29.] Z//E SEED GROWING SECRETLY. 123 





Newman urged that an ancient Christian, returning 
to earth, would recognise the services and the Church 
of Rome, and would fail to recognise ours, he was 
probably mistaken. To go no farther, there is no 
Church on earth so unlike the Churches of the New 
Testament as that which offers praise to God in a 
strange tongue. St. Paul apprehended that a stranger 
in such an assembly would reckon the worshippers mad. 
But in any case the argument forgets that the whole 
kingdom of God is to resemble seed, not in a drawer, 
but in the earth, and advancing towards the harvest. 
It must “die” to much if it will bring forth fruit. 
It must acquire strange bulk, strange forms, strange 
organisms. It must become, to those who only 
knew it as it was, quite as unrecognisable as our 
Churches are said to be. And yet the changes must 
be those of logical growth, not of corruption. And 
this parable tells us ‘they must be accomplished with- 
out any special interference such as marked the sowing 
time. Well then, the parable is a prophecy. Move- 
ment after movement has modified the life of the 
Church. Even its structure is not all it was. But 
these changes have every one been wrought by human 
agency, they have come from within it, like the force 
which pushes the germ out of the soil, and expands 
the bud into the full corn in the ear. There has been 
no grafting knife to insert a new principle of richer 
hfe ; the gospel and the sacraments of our Lord have 
contained in them the promise and potency of all that 
was yet to be unfolded, all the gracefulness and all the 
fruit. And these words, ‘the earth beareth fruit of 
herself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear,” each so different, and yet so dependent on 
what preceded, teach us two great ecclesiastical lessons. 


124 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





They condemn the violent and revolutionary changes, 
which would not develop old germs but tear them open 
or perhaps pull them up. Much may be distasteful to 
the spirit of sordid utilitarianism ; a mere husk, which 
nevertheless within it shelters precious grain, other- 
wise sure to perish. If thus we learn to respect the 
old, still more do we learn that what is new has also 
its all-important part to play. The blade and the ear 
in turn are innovations. We must not condemn those 
new forms of Christian activity, Christian association, 
and Christian councils, which new times evoke, until 
we have considered well whether they are truly ex- 
pansions, in the light and heat of our century, of the 
sacred life-germ of the ancient faith and the ancient 
love. 

And what lessons has this parable for the individual? 
Surely that of active present faith, not waiting for 
future gifts of light or feeling, but confident that the 
seed already sown, the seed of the word, has power to 
develop into the rich fruit of Christian character. (in 
this respect the parable supplements the first one. 
From that we learned that if the soil were not in fault, 
if the heart were honest and good, the seed would 
fructify. From this we learn that these conditions 
suffice for a perfect harvest. The incessant, all-impor- 
tant help of God, we have seen, is not denied; it is 
taken for granted, as the atmospheric and magnetic 
influences upon the grain. So should we reverentially 
and thankfully rely upon the aid of God, and then, 
instead of waiting for strange visitations and special 
stirrings of grace, account that we already possess 
enough to make us responsible for the harvest of the 
soul. Multitudes of souls, whose true calling is, in 
obedient trust, to arise and walk, are at this moment 


Markiv. 26 29.] Z7HWE SEED GROWING SECRETLY. 125 


lying impotent beside some pool which they expect an 
angel to stir, and into which they fain would then be 
put by some one, they know not whom—multitudes of 
expectant, inert, inactive souls, who know not that the 
text they have most need to ponder is this: “the earth 
beareth fruit of itself” For want of this they are 
actually, day by day, receiving the grace of God in 
vain. 

We learn also to be content with gradual progress. 
St. John did not blame the children and young men 
to whom he wrote, because they were not mature in 
wisdom and experience. St. Paul exhorts us to grow 
up in all things into Him which is the Head, even 
Christ. They do not ask for more than steady growth; 
and their Master, as He distrusted the fleeting joy of 
hearers whose hearts were shallow, now explicitly bids 
us not to be content with any first attainment, not to 
count all done if we are converted, but to develop 
first the blade, then the ear, and lastly the full corn in 
the ear. 

Does it seem a tedious weary sentence? Are we 
discontent for want of conscious interferences of 
heaven? Do we complain that, to human conscious- 
ness, the great Sower sleeps and rises up and leaves 
the grain to fare He knows not how? It is only fora 
little while. When the fruit is ripe, He will Himself 
gather it into [is eternal garner, 


126 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK. 








THE MUSTARD SEED. 


“* And He said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God ? or in what 
parable shall we set it forth? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, 
when it is sowa upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds 
that are upon the earth, yet when it is sown, groweth up, and becometh 
greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great branches ; so that the 
birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof. And with 
many such parables spake He the word unto them, as they were able 
to. hear it: and without a parable spake He not unto them: but 
privately to His own disciples He expounded all things,”-—Mark 
iv. 30-34 (R.V.). 


Sr. Mark has recorded one other parable of this 
great cycle. Jesus now invites the disciples to let 
their own minds play upon the subject. Each is to 
ask himself a question: How shall we liken the king- 
dom of God ? or in what parable shall we set it forth ? 

A gentle pause, time for them to form some splendid 
and ambitious image in their minds, and then we can 
suppose with what surprise they heard His own 
answer, “It is like a grain of mustard seed.” And 
truly some Christians of a later day might be aston- 
ished also, if they could call up a fair image of their 
own conceptions of the kingdom of God, and compare 
it with this figure, employed by Jesus. 

But here one must observe a peculiarity in our 
Saviour’s use of images. His illustrations of His first 
coming, and of His work of grace, which are many, are 
all of the homeliest kind. He is a shepherd who seeks 
one sheep. He is not an eagle that fluttereth over her 
young and beareth them on her pinions, but a hen who 
gathereth her chickens under her wings. Never once 
does He rise into that high and poetic strain with 
which His followers have loved to sing of the Star 
cf Bethlehem, and which Isaiah lavished beforehand 


Mark iv. 30-34.] THE MUSTARD SEED, 127 





upon the birth of the Prince of Peace. There is no 
language more intensely concentrated and glowing than 
He has employed to describe the judgment of the 
hypocrites who rejected Him, of Jerusalem, and of the 
world at last. But when He speaks of His first coming 
and its effects, it is not of that sunrise to which all 
kings and nations shall hasten, but of a little grain of 
mustard seed, which is to become “greater than all 
the herbs,” and put forth great branches, ‘‘so that the 
birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow of 
them.” When one thinks of such an image for such 
an event, of the founding of the kingdom of God, 
and its advance to universal supremacy, represented by 
the small seed of a shrub which grows to the height 
of a tree, and even harbours birds, he is conscious 
almost of incongruity. But when one reconsiders it, 
he is filled with awe and reverence. For this exactly 
expresses the way of thinking natural to One who has 
stooped immeasurably down to the task which all 
others feel to be so lofty. There is a poem of Shelley, 
which expresses the relative greatness of three spirits 
by the less and less value which they set on the 
splendours of the material heavens. To the first they 
are a palace-roof of golden lights, to the second but 
the mind’s first chamber, to the last only drops which 
Nature’s mighty heart drives through thinnest veins. 
Now that which was to Isaiah the exalting of every 
valley and the bringing low of every mountain, and to 
Daniel the overthrow of a mighty image whose aspect 
was terrible, by a stone cut out without hands, was to 
Jesus but the sowing of a grain of mustard seed. 
Could any other have spoken thus of the founding ot 
the kingdom of God? An enthusiast over-values his 
work, he can think of nothing else; and he expects 


128 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 

immediate revolutions. Jesus was keenly aware that 
His work in itself was very small, no more than the 
sowing of a seed, and even of the least, popularly 
speaking, among all seeds. Clearly He did not over- 
rate the apparent effect of His work on earth. And 
‘indeed, what germ of religious teaching could be less 
promising than the doctrine of the cross, held by a few 
peasants in a despised province of a nation already 
subjugated and soon to be overwhelmed ? 

The image expresses more than the feeble beginning 
and victorious issue of His work, more than even the 
gradual and logical process by which this final triumph 
should be attained. All this we found in the preceding 

( parable. (But here the emphasis is laid on the develop- 
ment of Christ's influence in unexpected spheres.) Un- 
like other herbs, the mustard in Eastern climates does 
grow into a tree, shoot out great branches from the 
main stem, and give shelter to the birds of the air. So 
has the Christian faith developed ever new collateral 
agencies, charitable, educational, and social: so have 
architecture, music, literature, flourished under its 
shade, and there is not one truly human interest which 
would not be deprived of its best shelter if the rod of 
Jesse were hewn down. Nay, we may urge that the 
Church itself has become the most potent force in direc- 
tions not its own: it broke the chains of the negro; it 
asserts the rights of woman and of the poor ; its noble 
literature is finding a response in the breast of a 
hundred degraded races; the herb has become a tree. 

And so in the life of individuals, if the seed be allowed 
its due scope and place to grow, it gives shelter and 
blessing to whatsoever things are honest and lovely, 
not only if there be any virtue, but also if there be any 
praise. 


Mark iv. 39 3 V.15,31,41-] FOUR MIRACLES. 129 





Well is it with the nation, and well with the soul, 
when the faith of Jesus is not rigidly restricted toa 
prescribed sphere, when the leaves which are for the 
healing of the nations cast their shadow broad and cool 
over all the spaces in which all its birds of song are 
nestling. 

A remarkable assertion is added. Although the para- 
bolic mode of teaching was adopted in judgment, yet its 
severe effect was confined within the narrowest limits. 
His many parables were spoken “as they were able to 
hear,” but only to His own disciples privately was all 
their meaning expounded. 


FOUR MIRACLES. 


** And there was a great calm.”—Mark iv. 39 (R.V.). 

“Behold, him that was possessed with devils, sitting. clothed and in 
his right mind, evez him that had the legion.”—-v. 15 (R.V.). 

** Who touched Me? ”—y. 31 (R.V.). 

‘© Talitha cumi.”—yv. 41 (R.V.). 

THERE are two ways, equally useful, of studying 
Scripture, as there are of regarding the other book 
of God, the face of Nature. We may bend over a wild 
flower, or gaze across a landscape ; and it will happen 
that a naturalist, pursuing a moth, loses sight of a 
mountain-range. It is a well-known proverb, that 
one may fail to see the wood for the trees, losing in 
details the general effect. And so the careful student 
of isolated texts may never perceive the force and 
cohesion of a connected passage. 

The reader of a Gospel narrative thinks, that by 
pendering it as a whole, he secures himself against 
any such misfortune. But a narrative dislocated, often 
Icses as much as a detached verse. The actions of our 
Lerd are often exquisitely grcupcd, as becometh Him 


9 


130 Gl sPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Who hath made everything not beautiful only, but 
especially beautiful in its season. And we should not 
be content without combining the two ways of reading 
Scripture, the detailed and the rapid,—lingering at 
times to apprehend the marvellous force of a solitary 
verse, and again sweeping over a broad expanse, like 
a surveyor, who, to map a country, stretches his 
triangles from mountain peak to peak. 

We have reached a point at which St. Mark records a 
special outshining of miraculous power. Four striking 
works follow each other without a break, and it must 
not fora moment be supposed that the narrative is thus 
constructed, certain intermediate discourses and events 
being sacrificed for the purpose, without a deliberate 
and a truthful intention. That intention is to represent 
the effect, intense and exalting, produced by such a 
cycle of wonders on the minds of His disciples. They 
saw them come close upon each other: we should lose 
the impression as we read, if other incidents were 
allowed to interpose themselves. It is one more 
example of St. Mark’s desire to throw light, above all 
things, upon the energy and power of the sacred life. 

We have to observe therefore the bearing of these 
four miracles on each other, and upon what precedes, 
before studying them one by one, 

It was atime of trial. The Pharisees had decided 
that He had a devil. His relatives had said He was 


beside Himself. His manner of teaching had change 


because the people should see without perceiving, and 
hear without understanding. They who understood 
His parables heard much of seed that failed, of success 
a great way off, of a kingdom which would indeed be 
great at last, but for the present weak and small, And 
i. is certain that there must have been heavy hearts 


: 


Mark iv. 39; v-15,31,41-] FOUR MIRACLES. 131 
among those who left, with Him, the populous side of 
the lake, to cross over into remote and semi-pagan 
retirement. To encourage them, and as if in protest 
against His rejection by the authorities, Jesus enters 
upon this great cycle of miracles. 

They find themselves, as the Church has often since 
been placed, and as every human soul has had to feel 
itself, far from shore, and tempest-beaten. The rage 
of human foes is not so deaf, so implacable, as that of 
wind and wave. It is the stress of adverse circum- 
stances in the direst form. But Jesus proves Himself 
to be Master of the forces of nature which would over- 
whelm them. 

Nay, they learn that His seeming indifference is no 
proof that they are neglected, by the rebuke He speaks 
to their over-importunate appeals, Why are ye so fear- 
ful? have ye not yet faith? And they, who might 
have been shaken by the infidelity of other men, fear 
exceedingly as they behold the obedience of the wind 
and the sea, and ask, Who then is this ? 

But in their mission as His disciples, a worse danger 
than the enmity of man or convulsions of nature awaits 
them. On landing, they are at once confronted by one 
whom an evil spirit has made exceeding fierce, so that 
no man could pass by that way. It is their way 
nevertheless, and they must tread it. And the de- 
moniac adores, and the evil spirits themselves are 
abject in supplication, and at the word of Jesus are 
expelled. Even the inhabitants, who will not receive 
Him, are awe-struck and deprecatory, and if at their 
bidding Jesus turns away again, His followers may 
judge whether the habitual meekness of such a one 
is due to feebleness or to a noble self-command. 

Landing once more, they are soon accosted by a 


132 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





ruler of the synagogue, whom sorrow has purified from 

the prejudices of his class. And Jesus is abeut to heal 

the daughter of Jairus, when another form of need is 
brought to light. A slow and secret decline, wasting 

the vital powers, a silent woe, speechless, stealthily 
approaching the Healer—over-this grief also He is 
Lord. And it is seen that neither the visible actions 

of Jesus nor the audible praises of His petitioners can 
measure the power that goes out of Him, the physical 7 
benefits which encompass the Teacher as a halo gee 
lopes flame. 

Circumstances, and the fiends of the pit, and the 
woes that waste the lives of men, over these-He_ has 
been seen to triumph. But behind all that we strive 
with here, there lurks the last enemy, and he also shall 
be subdued. And now first an example is recorded of 
what we know to have already taken place, the con- 
quest of death by his predicted Spoiler. Youth and 
gentle maidenhood, high hope and prosperous circum- 
stances have been wasted, but the call of Jesus is heard 
by the ear that was stopped with dust, and the spirit 
obeys Him in the far off realm of the departed, and 
they who have just seen such other marvels, are never- 
theless amazed with a great amazement. 

No cycle of miracles could be more rounded, sym- 
metrical and exhaustive; none could better vindicate 
to His disciples His impugned authority, or brace their 
endangered faith, or fit them for what almost imme- 
diately followed, their own commission, and the first 
journey upon which they too cast out many devils, and 
anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them, 


Mark iv. 35-41; vi.47:52.] ZHE TWO STORMS. 133 





THE TWO STORMS. 


«* And on :hat day, when even was come, He saith unto them, Let us 
go over unto the other side. And leaving the multitude, they take 
Him with them, even as He was, in the boat. And other boats were 
with Him. And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves 
beat into the boat, insomuch that the boat was now filling. And He 
Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion : and they awake Him, 
and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And He 
awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. 
And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And He sail unto 
them, Why are ye fearful? have ye not yet faith? And they feared 
exceedingly, and said one to another, Who then is this, that even the 
wind and the sea obey him ?”—Mark iv. 35-41 (R.V.). 

** And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea. and 
He alone on the land. And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the 
wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the night He 
cometh unto them, walking on the sea ; and He would have passed by 
them ; but they, when they saw Him walking on the sea, supposed that 
it was an apparition, and cried out : for they all saw Him, and were 
treubled. But He straightway spake with them, and saith unto them, 
Be of good cheer: it is 1; be not afraid. And He went up unto them 
into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in 
themselves. For they understood not concerning the loaves, but their 
hearts were hardened.” —MarkK vi. 47-52 (R.V.). 


Few readers are insensible to the wonderful power 
with which the Gospels tell the story of the two storms 
upon the lake. The narratives are favourites in every 
Sunday school; they form the basis of countless 
hymns and poems; and we always recur to them with 
fresh delight. 

In the first account we see as in a picture the 
weariness of the great Teacher, when, the long day 
being over and the multitude dismissed, He retreats 
across the sea without preparation, and ‘(as He was,” 
and sinks to sleep on the one cushion in the stern, 
undisturbed by the raging tempest or by the waves 
which beat into the boat. We observe the reluctance 


s 
\ 


134 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





of the disciples to arouse Him until the peril is extreme, 
and the boat is “now” filling. We hear from St. 
Mark, the associate of St. Peter, the presumptuous and 
characteristic cry which expresses terror, and perhaps 
dread lest His tranquil slumbers may indicate a separa- 
tion between His cause and theirs, who perish while 
He is unconcerned. We admire equally the calm and 
masterful words which quell the tempest, and those 
which enjoin a faith so lofty as to endure the last 
extremities of peril without dismay, without agitation 
in its prayers. We observe the strange incident, that 
no sooner does the storm cease than the-waters;- 
commonly seething for many hours afterwards, grow 
calm. And the picture is completed by the mention of 
their new dread (fear of the supernatural Man replacing 
their terror amid the convulsions of nature),~and’ of 
their awestruck questioning among themselves. 

In the second narrative we see the ship far out in 
the lake, but watched by One, Who is alone upon the 
land. Through the gloom He sees them “tormented” 
by fruitless rowing ; but though this is the reason why 
He comes, He is about to pass them by. The watch 
of the night is remembered ; it is the fourth. The cry 
of their alarm is universal, for they all saw Him and 
were troubled. We are told of the promptitude with 
which He thereupon relieved their fears; we see Him 
climb up into the boat, and the sudden ceasing of the 
storm, and their amazement. Nor is that after-thought 
omitted in which they blamed themselves for their 
astonishment. If their hearts had not been hardened, 
the miracle of the loaves would have taught them 
that Jesus was the master of the physical world. 

Now all this picturesque detail belongs to a single 
Gospel. And it is exactly what a believer would 


Ga 


Mark iv. 35-41; vi. 47-52-] ZHEZ TIVO STORMS. 13 


expect. How much soever the healing of disease 
might interest St. Luke the physician, who relates all 
such events so vividly, it would have impressed the 
patient himself yet more, and an account of it by him, 
if we had it, would be full of graphic touches. Now 
these two miracles were wrought for the rescue of the 
apostles themselves. The Twelve took the place held 
in others by the lame, the halt and the blind: the 
suspense, the appeal, and the joy of deliverance were 
all theirown. It is therefore no wonder that we find 
their accounts of these especial miracles so picturesque. 
But this is a solid evidence of the truth of the narra- 
tives ; for while the remembrance of such actual events 
should thrill with agitated life, there is no reason why 
a legend of the kind should be especially clear and 
vivid. The same argument might easily be carried 
farther. When the disciples began to reproach them- 
selves for their unbelieving astonishment, they were 
naturally conscious of having failed to learn the lesson 
which had been taught them just before. Later students 
and moralists would have observed that another miracle, 
a little earlier, was a still closer precedent, but they 
naturally blamed themselves most for being blind to 
what was immediately before their eyes. Now when 
Jesus walked upon the waters and the disciples were 
amazed, it is not said that they forgot how He had 
already stilled a tempest, but they considered not the 
miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. 
In touches like this we find the influence of a by- 
stander beyond denial. 

Every student of Scripture must have observed the 
special significance of those parables and miracles 
which recur a second time with certain designed varia- 
tions. In the miraculous draughts of fishes, Christ 


136 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Himself avowed an allusion to the catching of men. 
And the Church has always discerned a spiritual 
intention in these two storms, in one of which Christ 
slept, while in the other His disciples toiled alone,-and 
which express, between them, the whole strain exer- 
cised upon a devout spirit by adverse circumstances. 
Dangers never alarmed one who realized both the 
presence of Jesus and His vigilant care. Temptation 
enters only because this is veiled. Why do adversities 
press hard upon me, if indeed | belong to Christ? He 
must either be indifferent and sleeping, or else absent 
altogether from my frail and foundering bark. It is 
thus that we let go our confidence, and incur agonies of 
mental suffering, and the rebuke of our Master, even 
though He continues to be the Protector of His un- 
worthy people. 

On the voyage of life we may conceive of Jesus 
as our Companion, for He is with us always, or as 
watching us from the everlasting hills, whither it was 
expedient for us that He should go. Nevertheless, we 
are storm-tossed and in danger. Although we are His, 
and not separated from Him by any conscious dis- 
obedience, yet the conditions of life are unmitigated, 
the winds as wild, the waves as merciless, the boat as 
cruelly ‘‘tormented” as ever. And no rescue comes: 
Jesus is asleep: He cares not that we perish. Then 
we pray after a fashion so clamorous, and with suppli- 
cation sc like demands, that we too appear to have 
undertaken to awake our Lord. Then we have to 
learn from the first of these miracles, and especially 
from its delay. The disciples were safe, had they only 
known it, whether Jesus would have interposed of His 
own accord, or whether they might still have needed to 
appeal to Him, but in a gentler fashion. We may ask 


Mark iv. 35-413 vi.47-52] THE TWO STORMS. 137 


heip, provided that we do so in a serene and trustful 
spirit, anxious for nothing, not seeking to extort a con- 
cession, but approaching with boldness the throne ot 
grace, on which our Father sits. It is thus that the 
peace of God shall rule our hearts and minds, for want 
of which the apostles were asked, Where is your faith ? 
Comparing the narratives, we learn that Jesus reassured 
their hearts even before He arose, and then, having 
first silenced by His calmness the storm within them, 
He stood up and rebuked the storm around. 

St. Augustine gave a false turn to the application, 
when he said, “If Jesus were not asleep within thee, 
thou wouldst be calm and at rest. But why is He 
asleep? Because thy faith is asleep,” etc. (Sermon Ixiii.) 
The sleep of Jesus was natural and right; and it 
answers not to our spiritual torpor, but to His apparent 
indifference and non-intervention in our time of distress. 
And the true lesson of the miracle is that we should 
trust Him Whose care fails not when it seems to fail, 
Who is able to save to the uttermost, and Whom we 
should approach in the direst peril without panic. It 
was fitly taught them first when all the powers of the 
State and the Church were leagued against Him, and 
He as a blind man saw not and as a dumb man opened 
not His mouth. 

The second storm should have found them braver by 
the experience of the first; but spiritually as well as 
bodily they were farther removed from Christ. The 
people, profoundly moved by the murder of the Baptist, 
wished to set Jesus on the throne, and the disciples were 
too ambitious to be allowed to be present while He dis- 
missed the multitudes. They had to be sent away, and 
it was from the distant hillside that Jesus saw their 
danger. Surely it is instructive, that neither the shades 


138 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





of night, nor the abstracted fervour of His prayers, pre- 
vented him from seeing it, nor the stormlashed waters 
from bringing aid. And significant also, that the ex- 
perience of remoteness, though not sinful, since He had 
sent them away, was yet the result of their own worldli- 
ness. It is when we are out of sympathy with Jesus 
hat we are most likely to be alone in trouble. None 
vas in their boat to save them, and in heart also they 
had gone out from the presence of their God. Therefore 
they failed to trust in His guidance Who had sent 
them into the ship: they had no sense of protection or 
of supervision ; and it was a terrible moment when a 
form was vaguely seen to glide over the waves. Christ, 
it would seem, would have gone before and led them 
to the haven where they would be. Or perhaps He 
“would have passed by them,” as He would after- 
wards have gone further than Emmaus, to elicit any 
trustful half-recognition which might call to Him and 
be rewarded. But they cried out for fear. And so it 
is continually with God in His world, men are terrified 
at the presence of the supernatural, because they fail 
to apprehend the abiding presence of the supernatural 
Christ. And yet there is one point at least in every 
life, the final moment, in which all else must recede, 
and the soul be left alone with the beings of another 
world. Then, and in every trial, and especially in all 
trials which press in upon us the consciousness of the 
spiritual universe, well is it for him who hears the 
voice of Jesus saying, It is I, be not afraid. 

For only through Jesus, only in His person, has 
that unknown universe ceased to be dreadful and 
mysterious. Only when He is welcomed does the 
storm cease to rage around us. 

It was the earlier of these miracles which first taught 


Mark iv. 35-51; vi.47-52.] ZTHE 7WO STORMS. 139 





the disciples that not only were human disorders under 
His control, and gifts and blessings at His disposal, 
but also the whole range of nature was subject to Him, 
and the winds and the sea obey Him. 

Shall we say that His rebuke addressed to these was 
a mere figure of speech? Some have inferred that 
natural convulsions are so directly the work of evil 
angels that the words of Jesus were really spoken 
to them. But the plain assertion is that He rebuked 
the winds and the waves, and these would not become 
identical with Satan even upon the supposition that he 
excites them. We ourselves continually personify the 
course of nature, and even complain of it, wantonly 
enough, and Scripture does not deny itself the use 
of ordinary human forms of speech. Yet the very 
peculiar word employed by Jesus cannot be without 
significance. It isthe same with which He had already 
confronted the violence of the demoniac in the syna- 
gogue, Be muzzled. At the least it expresses stern 
repression, and thus it reminds us that creation itself 
is made subject to vanity, the world deranged by sin, 
so that all around us requires readjustment as truly as 
all within, and Christ shall at last create a new earth 
as well as a new heaven. 

Some pious people resign themselves much too 
passively to the mischiefs of the material universe, 
supposing that troubles which are not of their own 
making, must needs be a Divine infliction, calling only 
for submission. But God sends oppositions to be 
conquered as well as burdens to be borne; and even 
before the fall the world had to be subdued. And 
our final mastery over the surrounding universe was 
expressed, when Jesus our Head rebuked the winds, 
and stilled the waves when they arose. 


149 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





As they beheld, a new sense fell upon His disciples 
of a more awful presence than they had yet discerned. 
They asked not only what manner of man is this? but, 
with surmises which went out beyond the limits of 
human greatness, Who then is this, that even the winds 
and the sea obey Him? 


CHAPTER V. 
THE DEMONIAC OF GADARA. 


** And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the 
Gerasenes. And when He was come out of the boat, straight way there 
met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his 

"dwelling in the tombs: and no man could any more bind him. no, not 
with a chain ; because that he had been often bound with fetters and 
chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him, and the fetters 
broken in pieces: and no man had strengthto tame him. And always, 
night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, 
and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he 
ran and worshipped Him ; and crying out with a loud voice, he saith, 
What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God ? 
I a:ijure Thee by God, torment me not. For He said unto him, Come 
forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man. And He asked him, What 
is thy name? And he saith unto Him, My name is Legion; for we 
are many. And he besought Him much that He would not send them 
away out of the country. Now there way there on the mountain side a 
great herd of swine feeding. And they besought Him, saying, Send us 
into the swine, that we may enter iutothem. And He gave them leave. 
And the unclean spirits came out, and entered into the swine : and the 
herd rushed down the steep into the sea, 27 22méer about two thousand ; 
and they were choked in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and 
told it in the city, and in the country. And they came to see what it 
was that had come to pass. And they come to Jesus, and behold him 
that was possessed with devils s tting, clothed and in his right mind, 
even him that had the legion: and they were afraid. And they that 
saw it decla ed unto them how it befell him that was possessed with 
devils, and concerning the swine. And they began to beseech Him to 
depart from their borders. And as He was entering into the boat, he 
that had been possessed with devils besought Him that he might be 
with Jlim, And He suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go to thy 


142 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR. 





house unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath 
done for thee, and 4ow He had mercy on thee. And he went his way, 
and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for 
him ; and all men did marvel.”—MarkK vy. I-20 (R.V.). 


RESH from asserting His mastery over winds 

and waves, the Lord was met by a more terrible 
enemy, the rage of human nature enslaved and impelled 
by the cruelty of hell. The place where He landed was 
a theatre not unfit for the tragedy which it revealed. 
A mixed race was there, indifferent to religion, rearing 
great herds of swine, upon which the law looked askance, 
but the profits of which they held so dear that they 
would choose to banish a Divine ambassador, and one 
who had released them from an incessant peril, rather 
than be deprived of these. Now it has already been 
shown that the wretches possessed by devils were not of 
necessity stained with special guilt. Even children 
fell into this misery. But yet we should expect to 
find it most rampant in places where God was dis- 
honoured, in Gerasa and in the coasts of Tyre and 
Sidon. And it isso. All misery is the consequence 
of sin, although individual misery does not measure 
individual guilt. And the places where the shadow of 
sin has fallen heaviest are always the haunts of direst 
wretchedness. 

The first Gospel mentions two demoniacs, but one 
was doubtless so pre-eminently fierce, and possibly so 
zealous afterward in proclaiming his deliverance, that 
only St. Matthew learned the existence of another, 
upon whom also Satan had wrought, if not his worst, 
enough to show his hatred, and the woes he would fain 
bring upon humanity. 

Among the few terrible glimpses given us of the 
mind of the fallen angels, one is most significant and 


Markv. 1-20.] ZHE DEMONIAC OF GADARA, 143 


sinister. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, 
to what haunts does he turn? He has no sympathy 
with what is lovely or sublime: in search of rest he 
wanders through dry places, deserts of arid sand in 
which his misery may be soothed by congenial desola- 
tion. Thus the ruins of the mystic Babylon become 
an abode of devils. And thus the unclean spirit, when 
he mastered this demoniac, drove him to a foul and 
dreary abode among the tombs. One can picture the 
victim in some lucid moment, awakening to conscious- 
ness only to shudder in his dreadful home, and scared 
back again into that ferocity which is the child of 
terror. 
‘*Ts it not very like, 
The horrible conceit of death and night, 


Together with the terror of the place 


° ° ° ° bs e 


Oh ! if I wake, shall I not be distraught, 
Environéd with all these hideous fears? ” 
Romeo and Juliet, iv. 3. 


There was a time when he had been under restraint, 
but “now no man could any more bind him” even 
with iron upon feet and wrists. The ferocity of his 
cruel subjugator turned his own strength against himself, 
so that night and day his howling was heard, as he 
cut himself with stones, and his haunts in the tombs 
and in the mountains were as dangerous as the lair of 
a wild breast, which no man dared pass by. What 
strange impulse drove him thence to the feet of Jesus ? 
Very dreadful is the picture of his conflicting tendencies ; 
the fiend within him struggling against something 
still human and attracted by the Divine, so that he runs 
from afar, yet cries aloud, and worships yet disowns 
having anything to do with Him; and as if the fiend 


144 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





had subverted the true personality, and become tl.e very 
man, when ordered to come out he adjures Jesus to 
torment him not. 

And here we observe the knowledge of Christ’s rank 
possessed by the evil ones. Long before Peter won a 
special blessing for acknowledging the Son of the 
living God, the demoniac called Him by the very name 
which flesh and blood did not reveal to Cephas. For 
their chief had tested and discovered Him in the 
wilderness, saying twice with dread surmise, If Thou 
be the Son of God. It is also noteworthy that the 
phrase, the most High God, is the name of Jehovah 
among the non-Jewish races. It occurs in both Testa- 
ments in connection with Melchizedek the Canaanite, 
It is used throughout the Babylonian proclamations in 
the book of Daniel. Micah puts it into the lips of 
Balaam. And the damsel with a spirit of divination 
employed it in Philippi. Except once, in a Psalm which 
tells of the return of apostate Israel to the Most High 
God (Ixxviii. 35), the epithet is used only in relation 
with the nations outside the covenant. Its occurrence 
here is probably a sign of the pagan influences by which 
Gadara was infected, and for which it was plagued. By 
the name of God then, whose Son He loudly confessed 
that Jesus was, the fiend within the man adjures Him 
to torment Him not. But Jesus had not asked to be 
acknowledged ; He had bidden the devil to come out. 
And persons who substitute loud confessions and 
clamorous orthodoxies for obedience should remember 
that so did the fiend of Gadara. Jesus replied by 

sking, What is thy name? The question was not an 
idle one, but had a healing tendency. For the man 
was beside himself: it was part of his cure that he was 
found “in his right mind;” and meanwhile his very 


Mark v. 1-20.] ZHE DEJIONIAC OF GADARA. 145 








consciousness was merged in that of the fiends who 
tortured him, so that his voice was their voice, and they 
returned a vaunting answer through His lips. Our 
Lord sought therefore both to calm His excitement and 
to remind him of himself, and of what he cnce had 
been before evil beings dethroned his will. These 
were not the man, but his enemies by whom he was 
“ carried about,” and “led captive at their will.” And 
it is always sobering to think of “ Myself,” the lonely 
individual, apart from even those who most influence 
me, with a soul to lose or save. With this very 
question the Church Catechism begins its work of 
arousing and instructing the conscience of each child, 
separating him from his fellows in order to lead him on 
to the knowledge of the individualising grace of God. 

It may be that the fiends within him dictated his 
reply, or that he himself, conscious of their tyranny, 
cried out in agony, We are many; aregiment like those 
of conquering Rome, drilled and armed to trample and 
destroy, a legion. This answer distinctly contravened 
what Christ had just implied, that he was one, an indi- 
vidual, and precious in his Maker’s eyes. But there 
are men and women in every Christian land, whom it 
might startle to look within, and see how far their 
individuality is oppressed and overlaid by a legion of 
impulses, appetites, and conventionalities, which leave 
them nothing personal, nothing essential and charac- 
teristic, nothing that deserves a name. The demons, 
now conscious of the power which calls them forth, 
besought Him to leave them a refuge in that country. 
St. Luke throws light upon this petition, as well as 
their former complaint, when he tells us they feared to 
be sent to “ the abyss” of their final retribution. And 
as we read of men who are haunted by a fearful looking 

10 


146 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK. 





for of judgment and a fierceness of fire, so they had no 
hope of escape, except until ‘‘the time.” For a little 
respite they prayed to be sent even into the swine, and 
Jesus gave them leave. 

What a difference there is between the proud and 
heroic spirits whom Milton celebrated, and these malig- 
nant but miserable beings, haunting the sepulchres like 
ghosts, truculent and yet dastardly, as ready to suppli- 
cate as to rend, filled with dread of the appointed time 
and of the abyss, clinging to that outlying country as a 
congenial haunt, and devising for themselves a last 
asylum among the brutes. And yet they are equally 
far from the materialistic superstitions uf that age and 
place ; they are not amenable to fumigations or exor- 
cisms, and they do not upset the furniture in rushing out. 
Many questions have been asked abcut the petition of 
the demons and our Lord’s consent. But none of them 
need much distress the reverential enquirer, who re- 
members by what misty horizons all our knowledge is 
enclosed. Most absurd is the charge that Jesus acted 
indefensibly in destroying property. Is it then so clear 
that the owners did not deserve their loss through the 
nature of their investments ? Was it merely as a man, 
or as the Son of the living God, that His consent was 
felt to be necessary? And was it any part of His 
mission to protect brutes from death ? 

The loss endured was no greater than when a crop 
is beaten down by hail, or a vineyard devastated by 
insects, and in these cases an agency beyond the control 
of man is sent or permitted by God, Who was in Christ. 

A far harder question it is, How could devils enter into 
brute creatures? and again, Why did they desire to do 
so? But the first of these is only a subdivision of the 
vaster problem, at once inevitable and insoluble, How 


Marky. 1-20.31 ZTYEZ DEMONIAC OF GADARA. 147 
does spirit in any of its forms animate matter, or even 
manipulate it? We know not by what strange link a 
thought contracts a sinew, and transmutes itself into 
words or deeds. And if we believe the dread and 
melancholy fact of the possession of a child by a fiend, 
what reason have we, beyond prejudice, for doubting 
tlie possession of swine? It must be observed also, 
that no such possession is proved by this narrative 
to be a common event, but the reverse. The notion 
is a Jast and wild expedient of despair, proposing to 
content itself with the uttermost abasement, if only the 
demons might still haunt the region where they had 
thriven so well. And the consent of Jesus does not 
commit Him to any judgment upon the merit or the 
possibility of the project. He leaves the experiment 
to prove itself, exactly as when Peter would walk upon 
the water; and a laconic ‘‘Go” in this case recalls the 
“Come” in that; an assent, without approval, to an 
attempt which was about to fail. Not in the world of 
brutes could they find shelter from the banishment 
they dreaded; for the whole herd, frantic and un- 
governed, rushed headlong into the sea and was 
destroyed. The second victory of the series was thus 
completed. Jesus was Master over the evil spirits 
which afflict humanity, as well as over the fierceness 
of the elements which rise against us. 


148 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR. 





THE MEN OF GADARA. 


** And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the 
country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass, 
And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with devils 
-itting. clothed and in his right mind, even him that had the legion: 

nd they were afraid. And they that saw it declared unto them how 
t befell him that was possessed with devils, and concerning the swine. 
And they began to beseech him to depart from their borders. And as 
He was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with devils 
besought Him that he might be with Him. And He suffered him not, 
but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them 
how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and Aew He had mercy 
on thee. And he went his way, and beyan to publish in Decapolis how 
great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.”— 
Mark vy. 14-20 (R.V.). 


Tue expulsion of the demons from the possessed, their 
entrance into the herd, and the destruction of the two 
thousand swine, were virtually one transaction, and 
must have impressed the swineherds in its totality, 
They saw on the one hand the restoration of a danger- 
ous and raging madman, known to be actuated by evil 
spirits, the removal of a standing peril which had 
already made one tract of country impassable, and (if 
they considered such a thing at all) the calming of a 
human soul, and its advent within the reach of all 
sacred influences. On the other side what was there ? 
The loss of two thousand swine; and the consciousness 
that the kingdom of God was come nigh unto them, 
This was always an alarming discovery. Isaiah said, 
Woe is me! when his eyes beheld God high and lifted 
up. And Peter said, Depart from me, when he learned 
by the miraculous draught of fish that the Lord was 
there. But Isaiah’s concern was because he was a 
man of unclean lips, and Peter’s was because he was 
a sinful man. Their alarm was that of an awakened 


Ae 


Mark v. 14-20.] THE MEN OF GADARA, 149 
conscience, and therefore they became the heralds of 
Him Whom they feared. But these men were simply 
scared at what they instinctively felt to be dangerous; 
and so they took refuge in a crowd, that frequent resort 
of the frivolous and conscience-stricken, and told in 
the city what they had seen. And when the inhabit- 
ants came ferth, a sight met them which might have 
won the sternest, the man sitting, clothed (a nice 
coincidence, since St. Mark had not mentioned that he 
“ware no clothes,”) and in his right mind, even him 
that had the legion, as the narrative emphatically adds. 
And doubtless the much debated incident of the swine 
had greatly helped to reassure this afflicted soul; the 
demons were palpably gone, visibly enough they were 
overmastered. But the citizens, like the swineherds, 
were merely terrified, neither grateful nor sympathetic ; 
“uninspired with hope of pure teaching, of rescue from 
other. influences of the evil one, or of any unearthly 
kingdom. Their formidable visitant was one to treat 
with all respect, but to remove with all speed, ‘ and 
they began to beseech Him to depart from their 
borders.” They began, for it did not require long 
entreaty ; the gospel which was free to all was not to 
be forced upon any. But how much did they blindly 
fling away, who refused the presence of the meek 
and lowly Giver of rest unto souls; and chose to 
be denied, as strangers whom He never knew, in the 
day when every eye shall see Him. 

With how sad a heart must Jesus have turned away. 
Yet one soul at least was won, for as He was entering 
into the boat, the man who owed all to Him prayed 
Him that he might be with Him. Why was the 
prayer refused? Doubtless it sprang chiefly from 
gratitude and love, thinking it hard to lose so soon the 


150 GOSTEL OF ST MARK. 








wondrous benefactor, the Man at whose feet he had 
sat down, Who alone had looked with pitiful and 
helpful eyes on one whom others only sought to 
“tame.” Such feelings are admirable, but they must 
be disciplined so as to seek, not their own indulgence, 
but their Master’s real service. Now a reclaimed de- 
moniac would have been a suspected companion for 
One who was accused of league with the Prince of the 
devils. There is no reason to suppose that he had 
any fitness whatever to enter the immediate circle of 
our Lord’s intimate disciples. His special testimony 
would lose all its force when he left the district where 
he was known; but there, on the contrary, the miracle 
could not fail to be impressive, as its extent and per- 
manence were seen. This man was perhaps the only 
missionary who could reckon upon a hearing from 
those who banished Jesus from their coasts. And 
Christ’s loving and unresentful heart would give this 
testimony to them in its fulness. It should begin at 
his own house and among his friends, who would 
surely listen. They should be told how great things 
the Lord had done for him, and Jesus expressly added, 
how He had mercy upon thee, that so they might learn 
their mistake, who feared and shrank from such a kindly 
visitant. Here isa less¢n for these modern days, when 
the conversion of any noted profligate is sure to be 
followed by attempts to push him into a vagrant 
publicity, not only full of peril in itself, but also re- 
moving him from the familiar sphere in which his con- 
sistent life would be more convincing than all sermons, 
and where no suspicion of self-interest could overcloud 
the brightness of his testimony. 

Possibly there was yet another reason for leaving 
him in hishome. He may have desired to remain close 


4 


Mark: v. 21-43.] WITH JAIRUS. 15 


to Jesus, lest, when the Saviour was absent, the evil 
spirits should resume their sway. In that case it 
would be necessary to exercise his faith and convince 
him that the words of Jesus were far-reaching and 
effectual, even when He was Himself remote. If so, 
he learned the lesson well, and became an evangelist 
through all the region of Decapolis. And where all 
did marvel, we may hope that some were won. What 
a revelation of mastery over the darkest and most 
dreadful forces of evil, and of respect for the human 
will (which Jesus, never once coerced by miracle, even 
when it rejected Him), what unwearied care for the 
rebellious, and what a sense of sacredness in lowly 
duties, better for the demoniac than the physical near- 
ness of his Lord, are combined in this astonishing 
narrative, which to invent in the second century would 
itself have required miraculous powers. 


WITH JAIRUS. 


‘* And when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto the other 
side, a great multitude was gathered unto Him: and He was by the 
sea. And there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by 
name ; and seeing Him, he falleth at His feet, and beseecheth Him 
much, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death: 7 pray 7hee 
that Thou come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may be made 
whole, and live. And He went with him; and a great multitude 
followed Him, and they thronged Him. And a woman, which had an 
issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of mary 
physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, 
but rather grew worse, having heard the things concerning Jesus, came 
in the crowd behind, and touched His garment. For she said, If I 
touch but His garments, I shall be made whole. And straightway the 
fcuntain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she 
was heaied of her plague. And straightway Jesus, perceiving in Elim- 
self vhat the power proceeding from Him had gone toith, turred Him 
about in the crowd, and said, Who touched My garments? And [is 
disciples said unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Lhee, 


152 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 
and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? And He looked round anout to 
see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, 
knowing what bad been dune to her, came and fell down betove Him, 
and told Him all the truth. And He said unto her, Daughter. thy 
faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy piazue, 
While He yet spake, they come from the ruler of the synagogues 
house, saying, Thy daugliter is dead: why troublest thou the Master 
any further? But Jesus not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the 
ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only believe. And He suffered no 
man to follow with Him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother 
of James. And they come to the house of the :uler of the synagogue ; 
and He beholdeth a tumult, and many weeping and wailing greatly. 
And when He was entered in, He saith unto them, Why make ye a 
tumult, and weep? the child is not dead, but sleepeth. And they 
laughed Him to scorn. But He, having put them all forth, taketh the 
father of the child and her mother and them that were with Him, and 
goeth in where the child was. And taking the child by the hand, Ile 
saith unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I 
say unto thee, Arise. And straightway the damsel rose up, and walked ; 
for she was twelve years old. And they were amazed straightway with 
a great amazement. And He charged them much that no man should 
know this; and He commanded that somehing should be given her to 
eat.” —MARK v. 21-43 (R.V.). 





Repu.tsep from Decapolis, but consoled by the rescue 
and zeal of the demoniac, Jesus returned to the western 
shore, and a great multitude assembled. The other 
boats which were with Him had doubtless spread the 
tidings of the preternatural calm which rescued them 
from deadly peril, and it may be that news of the event 
of Gadara arrived almost as soon as He Whom they 
celebrated. We have seen that St. Mark aims at bring- 
ing the four great miracles of this period into the closest 
sequence. And so he passes over a certain brief period 
with the words “He was by the sea.” But in fact 
Jesus was reasoning with the Pharisees, and with the 
disciples of John, who had assailed Him and His 
followers, when one of their natural leaders threw him- 
self at His feet. 


Mark v. 21-43.] WITH JAIRUS, 153 


The contrast is sharp enough, as He rises from a 
feast to go to the house of mourning, from eating with 
publicans and sinners to accompany a ruler of the 
synagogue. These unexpected calls, these sudden 

Iternations all found Him equally ready to bear the 
same noble part, in the most dissimilar scenes, and in 
treating temperaments the most unlike. But the con- 
trast should also be observed between those harsh and 
hostile critics who hated Him in the interests of dogma 
and of ceremonial, and Jairus, whose views were theirs, 
but whose heart was softened by trouble. The danger 
of his child was what drove him, perhaps reluctantly 
enough, to beseech Jesus much. And nothing could 
be more touching than his prayer for his “little 
daughter,” its sequence broken as if with a sob; wist- 
fully pictorial as to the process, ‘‘that Thou come and 
lay Thy hands upon her,” and dilating wistfully too 
upon the effect, “that she may be made whole and 
live.” If a miracle were not in question, the dullest 
critic in Europe would confess that this exquisite sup- 
plication was not composed by an evangelist, but a 
father. And he would understand also why the very 
words in their native dialect were not forgotten, which 
men had heard awake the dead. 

As Jesus went with him, a great multitude followed 
Him, and they thronged Him. It is quite evident that 
Jesus did not love these gatherings of the idly curious, 
Partly from such movements He had withdrawn Him- 
self to Gadara; and partly to avoid exciting them He 
strove to keep many of His miracles a secret. Sensa- 
tionalism is neither grace nor a means of grace. And 
it must be considered that the perfect Man, as far from 
mental apathy or physical insensibility as from morbid 
fastidiousness, would find much to shrink away from in 


154 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





the pressure of a city crowd. The contact of inferior 
organizations, selfishness driving back the weak and 
gent.e, vulgar scrutiny and audible comment, and the 
desire for some miracle as an idle show, which He would 
only work because His gentle heart was full of pity, 
all these would be utterly distressing to Him who was 


“ The first true gentleman that ever breathed,” 


as well as the revelation of Godin flesh. It is therefore 
noteworthy that we have many examples of His grace 
and goodness amid such trying scenes, as when He 
spoke to Zacchzeus, and called Bartimzeus to Him to be 
healed. Jesus could be wrathful but He was never 
irritated. Of these examples one of the most beautiful 
is here recorded, for as He went with Jairus, amidst the 
rude and violent thronging of the crowds, moving alone 
(as men often are in sympathy and in heart alone amid 
seething thoroughfares), He suddenly became aware of 
a touch, the timid and stealthy touch of a broken-hearted 
woman, pale and wasted with disease, but borne through 
the crowd by the last effort of despair and the first 
energy of anewborn hope. She ought not to have come 
thither, since her touch spread ceremonial uncleanness 
far and wide. Nor ought she to have stolen a blessing 
instead of praying for it. And if we seek to blame her 
still further, we may condemn the superstitious notion 
that Christ’s gifts of healing were not conscious and 
loving actions, but a mere contagion of health, by which 
one might profit unfelt and undiscovered. It is urged 
indeed that hers was not a faith thus clouded, but so 
majestic as to believe that Christ would know and re- 
spond to the silent hint of a gentle touch. And is it 
supposed that Jesus would have dragged into publicity 
such a perfect lily of the vale as this ? and what means 


Mark v. 21-43.] WITH JAIRUS. 155 








her trembling confession, and the discovery that she 
could not be hid? But when our keener intellects have 
criticised her errors, and our clearer ethics have frowned 
upon her misconduct, one fact remains. She is the 
only woman upon whom Jesus is recorded to have 
bestowed any epithet but a formal one. Her misery 
and her faith drew from His guarded lips, the tender 
and yet lofty word Daughter. 

So much better is the faith which seeks for blessing, 
however erroneous be its means, than the heartless 

propriety which criticises with most dispassionate 
clearness, chiefly because it really seeks nothing for 
itself at all. Such faith is always an appeal, and is 
responded to, not as she supposed, mechanically, un- 
consciously, nor, of course, by the opus operatum of a 
garment touched (or of a sacrament formally received), 
but by the going forth of power from a conscious 
Giver, in response to the need which has approached 
His fulness. He knew her secret and fearful approach 
to Him, as He knew the guileless heart of Nathanael, 
whom He marked beneath the fig-tree. And He dealt 
with her very gently. Doubtless there are many such 
concealed woes, secret, untold miseries which eat deep 
into gentle hearts, and are never spoken, and cannot, 
like Bartimzeus, cry aloud for public pity. For these 
also there is balm in Gilead, and if the Lord requires 
them to confess Him publicly, He will first give them 
due strength to do so. This enfeebled and emaciated 
woman was allowed to feel in her body that she was 
healed of her plague, before she was called upon for 
her confession. Jesus asked, Who touched my clothes? 
It was one thing to press Him, driven forward by the 
multitude around, as circumstances impel so many to 
become churchgoers, readers of Scripture, interested in 


156 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





sacred questions and controversies until they are borne 
as by physical propulsion into the closest contact with 
our Lord, but not drawn thither by any personal crav- 
ing or sense of want. nor expecting any blessed reaction 
of ‘the power proceeding from Him.” It was another 
thing to reach out a timid hand and touch appealingly 
even that tasselled fringe of His garment which had 
a religious significance, whence perhaps she drew a 
semi-superstitious hope. In the face of this incident, 
can any orthodoxy forbid us to believe that the grace 
of Christ extends, now as of yore, to many a super- . 
stitious and erring approach by which souls reach after 
Christ ? 

The disciples wondered at His question: they knew 
not that “the flesh presses but faith touches ;” but as 
He continued to look around and seek her that had 
done this thing, she fell down and told Him all the 
truth. Fearing and trembling she spoke, for indeed 
she had been presumptuous, and ventured without 
permission. But the chief thing was that she had 
ventured, and so He graciously replied, Daughter, thy 
faith hath made thee whole, go in peace and be whole 
of thy plague. Thus she received more than she had 
asked or thought; not only healing for the body, but 
also a victory over that self-effacing, fearful, half mor- 
bid diffidence, which long and weakening disease entails. 
Thus also, instead of a secret cure, she was given the 
open benediction of her Lord, and such confirmation in 
her privilege as many more would enjoy if only with 
their mouth confession were made unto salvation. 

While He yet spoke, and the heart of Jairus was 
divided between joy at a new evidence of the power 
of Christ, and impatience at every moment of delay, 
not knowing that his Benefactor was the Lord of time 


Mark ¢. 21-43] WITH JAIRUS. 157 





itself, the fatal message came, tinged with some little 
irony as it asked, Why troublest thou the Teacher 
any more? It is quite certain that Jesus had before 
now raised the dead, but no miracle of the kind had 
acquired such prominence as afterwards to claim a 
place in the Gospel narratives. 

One is led to suspect that the care of Jesus had pre- 
vailed,*and they had not been widely published. To 
those who brought this message, perhaps no such case 
had travelled, certainly none had gained their cre- 
dence. It was in their eyes a thing incredible that He 
should raise the dead, and indeed there is a wide 
difference between every other miracle and this. We 
struggle against all else, but when death comes we feel 
that all is over except to bury out of our sight what 
once was beautiful and dear. Death is destiny made 
visible ; it is the irrevocable. Who shall unsay the 
words of a bleeding heart, I shall go to him but he 
shall not return to me? But Christ came to destroy 
him that had the power of death. Even now, through 
Him, we are partakers of a more intense and deeper 
life, and have not only the hope but the beginning of 
immortality. And it was the natural seal upon His 
lofty mission, that He should publicly raise up the dead. 
For so great a task, shall we say that Jesus now 
gathers all His energies ? That would be woefully to 
misread the story; for a grand simplicity, the easy 
bearing of unstrained and amply adequate resources, is 
common to all the narratives of life brought back. We 
shall hereafter see good reason why Jesus employed 
means for other miracles, and even advanced by stages 
in the work. But lest we should suppose that effort 
was necessary, and His power but just sufficed to over- 
come the resistance, none of these supreme miracles 


158 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


is wrought with the slightest effort. Prophets and 
apostles may need to stretch tl emselves upon the bed or ~ 
to embrace the corpse ; Jesus, in His own noble phrase, 
awakes it out of sleep. A wonderful ease and quiet- 
ness pervade the narratives, expressing exactly the 
serene bearing of the Lord of the dead and of the 
living. There is no holding back, no toying with the 
sorrow of the bereaved, such as even Euripides, the 
tenderest of the Greeks, ascribed to the demigod who 
tore from the grip of death the heroic wife of Admetus, 
Hercules plays with the husband’s sorrow, suggests 
the consolation of a new bridal, and extorts the angry 
cry, “Silence, what have you said? I would not have 
believed it of you.” But what is natural to a hero, 
flushed with victory and the sense of patronage, would 
have ill become the absolute self-possession and gentle 
grace of Jesus. In every case, therefore, He is full of 
encouragement and sympathy, even before His work is 
wrought. To the widow of Nain He says, “ Weep not.” 
He tells the sister of Lazarus, “If thou wilt believe, 
thou shalt see the salvation of God.” And when these 
disastrous tidings shake all the faith of Jairus, Jesus 
loses not a moment in reassuring Him: “ Fear not, 
only believe,” He says, not heeding the word spoken ; 
that is to say, Himself unagitated and serene.* 

In every case some co-operation was expected from the 
bystanders. The bearers of the widow’s son halted, ex- 
pectant, when this majestic and tender Wayfarer touched 
the bier. The friends of Lazarus rolled away the stone 
from the sepulchre. But the professional mourners in 
the house of Jairus were callous and insensible, and 





* Unless indeed the meaning be rather, “‘ over hearing the word,” 
which is not its force in the New 1'sstament (Matt. «viii. 17, twice), 


Mark v. 21-43.] WITH JAIRUS. 159 


when He interrupted their clamorous wailing, with the 
question, Why make ye tumult and weep? they laughed 
Him to scorn; a fit expression of the world’s purblind 
incredulity, its reliance upon ordinary “ experience” to 
disprove all possibilities of the extraordinary and Divine, 
and its heartless transition from conventional sorrow 
to ghastly laughter, mocking in the presence of death 
—which is, in its view, so desperate—the last hope of 
humanity. Laughter is not the fitting mood in which 
to contradict the Christian hope, that our lost ones are 
not dead, but sleep. The new and strange hope for 
humanity which Jesus thus asserted, He went on to 
prove, but not for them. Exerting that moral ascen- 
dency, which sufficed Him twice to cleanse the Temple, 
He put them all forth, as already He had shut out the 
crowd, and all His disciples but ‘‘the elect of His elec- 
tion,” the three who now first obtain a special privilege. 
The scene was one of surpassing solemnity and awe; 
but not more so than that of Nain, or by the tomb of 
Lazarus. Why then were not only the idly curious 
and thescornful, but nine of His chosen ones excluded ? 
Surely we may believe, for the sake of the little girl, 
whose tender grace of unconscious maidenhood should 
not, in its hour of reawakened vitality, be the centre 
of a gazing circle. He kept with Him the deeply 
reverential and the loving, the ripest apostles and the 
parents of the child, since love and reverence are ever 
the conditions of real insight. And then, first, was 
exhibited the gentle and profound regard of Christ for 
children. He did not arouse her, as others, with a call 
only, but took her by the hand, while He spoke to her 
those Aramaic words, so marvellous in their effect, 
which St. Peter did not fail to repeat to St. Mark as he 
had heard them, Talitha cumi; Damisel, I say unto thee, 


160 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Arise. They have an added sweetness when we reflect 
that the former word, though applied to a very young 
child, is in its root a variation of the word for a little 
lamb. How exquisite from the lips of the Good Shep- 
herd, Who gave His life for the sheep. How strange 
to be thus awakened from the mysterious sleep, and to 
gaze witha child’s fresh eyes into the loving eyes of 
Jesus. Let us seek to realise such positions, to com- 
prehend the marvellous heart which they reveal to us, 
and we shall derive more love and trust from the effort 
than from all such doctrinal inference and allegorizing 
as would dry up, into a hortus siccus, the sweetest blooms 
of the sweetest story ever told. 

So shall we understand what happened next in all 
three cases. Something preternatural and therefore 
dreadful, appeared to hang about the lives so won- 
drously restored. The widow of Nain did not dare to 
embrace her son until Christ ‘‘ gave him to his mother.” 
The bystanders did not touch Lazarus, bound hand and 
foot, until Jesus bade them “loose him and let him go.” 
And the five who stood about this child’s bed, amazed 
straightway with a great amazement, had to be reminded 
that being now in perfect health, after an illness which 
left her system wholly unsupplied, something should be 
given her to eat. This is the point at which Euripides 
could find nothing fitter for Hercules to utter than the 
awkward boast, ‘‘ Thou wilt some day say that the 
son of Jove was a capital guest to entertain.” Whata 
contrast. For Jesus was utterly unflushed, undazzled, 
apparently unconscious of anything to disturb His 
composure. And so far was He from the unhappy 
modern notion, that every act of grace must be pro- 
claimed on the housetop, and every recipient of grace 
however young, however unmatured, paraded and ex- 


Mark v, 21-43.] WITH JAIRUS. 161 








hibited, that He charged them much that no man should 
know this. 

The story throughout is graphic and full of character ; 
every touch, every word reveals the Divine Man; and 
only reluctance to believe a miracle prevents it from 
proving itself to every candid mind. Whether it be ac- 
cepted or rejected, it is itself miraculous. It could not 
have grown up in the soil which generated the early 
myths and legends, by the working of the ordinary laws 
of mind. It is beyond their power to invent or to 
dream, supernatural in the strictest sense. 

This miracle completes the cycle. Nature, distracted 
by the Fall, has revolted against Him in vain. Satan, 
intrenched in his last stronghold, has resisted, and 
humbled himself to entreaties and to desperate contriv- 
ances, in vain. Secret and unspoken woes, and silent 
germs of belief, have hidden from Him in vain. Death 
itself has closed its bony fingers upon its prey, in vain, 
Nothing can resist the power and love, which are 
enusted on behalf of all who put their trust in Jesus. 


CHAPTER VIL 
REJECTED IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. 


** And He went out from thence; and He cometh into His own 
country ; and His disciples follow Him.”—Mark vi. 1-6 (R.V.), 


E have seen how St. Mark, to bring out more 

vividly the connection between four mighty 
signs, their ideal completeness as a whole, and that 
mastery over nature and the spiritual world which they 
reveal, grouped them resolutely together, excluding 
even significant incidents which would break in upon 
their sequence. Bearing this in mind, how profoundly 
instructive it is that our Evangelist shows us this 
Master over storm and demons, over too-silent disease, 
and over death, too clamorously bewailed, in the next 
place teaching His own countrymen in vain, and an 
offence to them. How startling to read, at this juncture, 
when legend would surely have thrown all men pros- 
trate at his feet, of His homely family and His trade, 
and how He Who rebuked the storm “ could there do 
no mighty work.” 

First of all, it is touching to see Jesus turning once 
more to “ His own country,” just at this crisis. They 
had rejected Him in a frenzy of rage, at the outset of 
His ministry. And He had very lately repulsed the 
rude attempt of His immediate relatives to interrupt 
His mission. But now His heart leads Him thither, 
once again to appeal to the companions of His youth, 


Mark vi.1-6.] REJECTED IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. 163 
with the halo of His recent and surpassing works upon 
His forehead. He does not abruptly interrupt their 
vocations, but waits as before for the Sabbath, and 
the hushed assembly in the sacred place. And as He 
teaches in the synagogue, they are conscious of His 
power. Whence could He have these things? His. 
wisdom was an equal wonder with His mighty works, 
of the reality of which they could not doubt. And what 
excuse then had they for listening to His wisdom in 
vain? But they went on to ask, Is not this the car- 
penter ? the Son of Mary ? they knew His brothers, 
and His sisters were living among them. And they 
were offended in Him, naturally enough. It zs hard to 
believe in the supremacy of one, whom circumstances 
-marked as our equal, and to admit the chieftainship of 
one who started side by side with us. In Palestine 
it was not disgraceful to be a tradesman, but yet they 
could fairly claim equality with “the carpenter.” And 
it is plain encugh that they found no impressive or 
significant difference from their neighbours in the 
“sisters” of Jesus, nor even in her whom all genera- 
tions call blessed. Why then should they abase them- 
_selves before the claims of Jesus ? 
It is an instructive incident. First of all, it shows 
us the perfection of our Lord’s abasement. He was not 
only a carpenter’s son, but what this passage only de- 
clares to us explicitly, He wrought as an artizan, and 
consecrated for ever a lowly trade, by the toil of those 
holy limbs whose sufferings should redeem the world. 
_ And we learn the abject folly of judging by mere 
worldly standards. We are bound to give due honour 
_ and precedence to rank and station. Refusing to do 
. this, we virtually undertake to dissolve society, and 
"readjust it upon other principles, or by instincts and 


164 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





intuitions of our own, a grave task, when it is realized, 
But we are not to be dazzled, much less to be misled, by 
the advantages of station or of birth. Yet if, as it would 
seem, Nazareth rejected Christ because He was not a 
person of quality, this is only the most extreme and 
ironical exhibition of what happens every day, when a 
noble character, self-denying, self-controlled and wise, 
fails to win the respect which is freely and gladly 
granted to vice and folly in a coronet. 

And yet, to one who reflected, the very objection they 
put forward was an evidence of His mission. His 
wisdom was confessed, and His miracles were not 
denied; were they less wonderful or more amazing, 
more supernatural, as the endowments of the carpenter 
whom they knew? Whence, they asked, had He de- 
rived His learning, as if it were not more noble for 
being original. 

Are we sure that men do not still make the same 
mistake? The perfect and lowly humanity of Jesus 
is a stumbling block to some who will freely admit 
His ideal perfections, and the matchless nobility of His 
moral teaching. They will grant anything but the 
supernatural origin of Him to Whom they attribute 
qualities beyond parallel, But whence had He those 
qualities ? What is there in the Galilee of the first 
century which prepares one for discovering there and 
then the revolutionizer of the virtues of the world, the 
most original, profound, and unique of all teachers, Him 
Whose example is still mightier than His precepts, and 
only not more perfect, because these also are without 
a flaw, Him Whom even unbelief would shrink from 
saluting by so cold a title as that of the most saintly of 
the saints. To ask with a clear scrutiny, whence the 
teaching of Jesus came, to realize the isolation from all 


Mark vi. 1-6.) REJECTED IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. 165 
centres of thought and movement, of this Hebrew, this 
provincial among Hebrews, this villager in Galilee, this 
carpenter in a village, and then to observe His mighty 
works in every quarter of the globe, is enough to satisfy 
ali candid minds that His earthly circumstances have 
something totally unlike themselves behind them. And 
the more men give ear to materialism and to materialistic 
evolution without an evolving mind, so much the more 
does the problem press upon them, Whence hath this 
man this wisdom? and what mean these mighty works? 

From our Lord’s own commentary upon their rejec- 
tion we learn to beware of the vulgarising effects of 
familiarity. They had seen His holy youth, against 
which no slander was ever breathed. And yet, while 
His teaching astonished them, He had no honour in 
his own house. It is the same result which so often 
seems to follow from a lifelong familiarity with Scripture 
and the means of grace. We read, almost mechanically, 
what melts and amazes the pagan to whom it is a new 
word. We forsake, or submit to the dull routine of, 
ordinances the most sacred, the most searching, the 
most invigorating and the most picturesque. 

And yet we wonder that the men of Nazareth could 
not discern the divinity of “the carpenter,” whose 
family lived quiet and unassuming lives in their own 
village. 

It is St. Mark, the historian of the energies of Christ, 
who tells us that He “ could there do no mighty work,” 
with only sufficient exception to prove that neither 
physical power nor compassion was what failed Him, 
since “ He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and 
healed them.” What then is conveyed by this bold 
phrase? Surely the fearful power of the human will 
to resist the will of man’s compassionate Redeemer, 


156 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





He would have gathered Jerusalem under His wing, 
but she would not; and the temporal results of her 
disobedience had to follow; siege, massacre and ruin. 
God has no pleasure in the death of him who dieth, 
yet death follows, as the inevitable wages of sin. 
Therefore, as surely as the miracles of Jesus typified 
His gracious purposes for the souls of men, Who 
_ forgiveth all our iniquities, Who healeth all our dis- 
eases, so surely the rejection and defeat of those loving 
purposes paralysed the arm stretched out to heai 
their sick. . 

Does it seem as if the words “He could not,” even 
thus explained, convey a certain affront, throw a shadow 
upon the glory of our Master? And the words “they 
mocked, scourged, crucified Him,” do these convey no 
affront ? The suffering of Jesus was not only physical : 
His heart was wounded ; His overtures were rejected ; 
His hands were stretched out in vain; His pity and 
love were crucified. 

But now let this be considered, that men who refuse 
His Spirit continually presume upon His mercy, and 
expect not to suffer the penalty of their evil deeds. 
Alas, that is impossible. Where unbelief rejected His 
teaching, He “could not” work the marvels of His 
grace. How shall they escape who reject so great 
salvation ? : 


Mark vi. 7-13.] ZHE M/7SSION OF THE TWELVE. 167 





THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE. 


** And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth 
by two and two ; and He gave them authority over the unclean spirits ; 
and He charged them that they should take nothing for ¢ezy journey, 
save a staff only ; no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse ; but fo 
go shod with sandals: and, sazd He, put not on two coats. And He 
said unto them, Wheresoever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye 
depart thence. And whatsoever place shall not receive you, and they 
hear you not, as ye go forth thence, shake off the dust that is under your 
feet for a testimony unto them. And they went out, and preached that 
men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with 
oil many that were sick, and healed them.”—Mark vi. 7-13 (R.V.). 


REPULSED a second time from the cradle of His youth, 
even as lately from Decapolis, with what a heavy heart 
must the Loving One have turned away. Yet we read 
of no abatement of His labours. He did not, like the 
fiery prophet, wander into the desert and make request 
that He might die. And it helps us to realise the 
elevation of our Lord, when we reflect how utterly 
the discouragement with which we sympathise in the 
great Elijah would ruin our conception of Jesus. 

It was now that He set on foot new efforts, and 
advanced in the training of His elect. For Himself, 
He went about the villages, whither slander and pre- 
judice had not yet penetrated, and was content to 
break new ground among the most untaught and 
sequestered of the people. The humblest field of 
labour was not too lowly for the Lord, although we 
meet, every day, with men who are “thrown away” 
and “buried” in obscure fields of usefulness. We 
have not yet learned to follow without a murmur the 
Carpenter, and the Teacher in villages, even though we 
are socthed in grief by thinking, because we endure the 
inevitable, that we are followers of the Man of Sorrows, 


168 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








At the same moment when democracies and priesthoods 
are rejecting their Lord, a king had destroyed His 
forerunner. On every account it was necessary to 
vary as well as multiply the means for the evangelisation 
of the country. Thus the movement would be ac- 
celerated, and it would no longer present one solitary 
point of attack to its unscrupulous foes. 

Jesus therefore called to Him the Twelve, and began 
tosend them forth. In so doing, His directions revealed 
at once His wisdom and His fears for them. 

Not even for unfallen man was it good to be alone. 
It was a bitter ingredient in the cup which Christ 
Himself drank, that His followers should be scattered 
to their own and leave Him alone. And it was at the 
last extremity, when he could no longer forbear, that 
St. Paul thought it good to be at Athens alone. Jesus 
therefore would not send His inexperienced heralds 
forth for the first time except by two and two, that each 
might sustain the courage and wisdom of his comrade, 
And His example was not forgotten. Peter and John 
together visited the converts in Samaria. And when 
Paul and Barnabas, whose first journey was together, 
could no longer agree, each of them took a new comrade 
end departed. Perhaps our modern missionaries lose 
more in energy than is gained in area by neglecting so 
humane a precedent, and forfeiting the special presence 
vouchsafed to the common worship of two or three. 

St. Mark has not recorded the mission of the seventy 
evangelists, but this narrative is clearly coloured by 
his knowledge of that event. Thus He does not 
mention the gift of miraculous power, which was 
common to both, but He does tell of the authority 
over unclean spirits, which was explicitly given to the 
Twelve; and which the Seventy, returning with joy, 


Mara vi.7-13] Z/7E AMISSION OF THE TWELVE. 169 








related that they also had successfully dared to claim. 
In conferring such power upon His disciples, Jesus 
took the first step towards that marvellous identification 
of Himself and His mastery over evil, with all His 
followers, that giving of His presence to their assemblies, 
His honour to their keeping, His victory to their 
experience, and His lifeblood to their veins, which 
makes Him the second Adam, represented in all the new- 
born race, and which finds its most vivid and blessed 
expression in the sacrament where His flesh is meat 
indeed and His blood is drink indeed. Now first He 
is seen to commit His powers and His honour into 
mortal hands. 

In doing this, He impressed on them the fact that 
they were not sent at first upon a toilsome and 
protracted journey. Their personal connection with 
Him was not broken but suspended for a little while. 
Hereafter, they would need to prepare for hardship, 
and he that had two coats should take them. It was 
not so now: sandals would suffice their feet; they 
should carry no wallet; only a staff was needed for 
their brief excursion through a hospitable land. But 
hospitality itself would have its dangers for them, 
and when warmly received they might be tempted to 
be féted by various hosts, enjoying the first enthusiastic 
welcome of each, and refusing to share afterwards the 
homely domestic life which would succeed. Yet it was 
when they ceased to be strangers that their influence 
would really be strongest; and so there was good 
reason, both for the sake of the family they might 
win, and for themselves who should not become se'f- 
indulgent, why they should not go from house to 
house. 

These directions were not meant to become universal 


170 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





rules, and we have seen how Jesus afterwards explicitly 
varied them. But their spirit is an admonition to all 
who are tempted to forget their mission in personal 
advantages which it may-offer. Thus commissioned 
and endowed, they should feel as they went the great- 
ness of the message they conveyed. Wherever they 
were rejected, no false meekness should forbid their 
indignant protest, and they should refuse to carry 
even the dust cf that evil and doomed place upon 
their feet. 

And they went forth and preached repentance, cast- 
ing out many devils, and healing many that were sick, 
In doing this, they anointed them with oil, as St. James 
afterwards directed, but as Jesus never did. He used 
no means, or when faith needed to be helped by a 
visible application, it was always the touch of His own 
hand or the moisture of His own lip. The distinction 
is significant. And also it must be remembered that oil 
was never used by disciples for the edification of the 
dying, but for the recovery of the sick. 

By this new agency the name of Jesus was more 
than ever spread abroad, until it reached the ears of 
a murderous tyrant, and stirred in his bosom not the 
repentance which they preached, but the horrors of 
ineffectual remorse. 


HEROD. 


“ And king Herod heard thereof; for His name had become known : 
and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore do 
these powers work in him. But others said, It is Elijah. And others 
said, /¢ is a prophet, even as one of the prophets. But Herod, when 
he heard ¢hereof, said, John, whom I beheaded, he is risen. For 
Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him 
in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife: for he 
had married her. For John said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee 
to have thy bro‘her’s wife. And Herodias set herself against him, and 


Mark vi. 14-29. ] HEROD. 17t 





desired to kill him ; and she could not; for Herod feared John, know- 
ing that he was a righteous man and a holy, and kept him safe. And 
when he heard him, he was much perplexed ; and he heard him gladly. 
And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday 
made a supper to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men 
of Galilee; and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and 
danced, she pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him; and 
the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I 
will give it thee. And he sware unt» her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask 
of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went 
out, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The 
head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste 
unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou forthwith giye me in 
a charger the head of J>hn the Baptist. And the king was exceeding 
sorry ; but for the sake of his oaths, and of them that sat at meat, he 
would not reject her. And straightway the king sent forth a soldier 
of his guard, and commanded to bring his head: and he went and 
beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a charger, and 
gave it to the damsel; and the damsel gave it to her mother. And 
when his disciples heard ¢hereof, they came and took up his corpse, 
and laid it in a tomb.”—MakK vi. 14-29 (R.V.). 


‘THE growing influence of Jesus demanded the mission 
of the Twelve, and this in its turn increased His fame 
until it alarmed the tetrarch Herod. An Idumezan 
ruler of Israel was forced to dread every religious 
movement, for all the waves of Hebrew fanaticism beat 
against the foreign throne. And Herod Antipas was 
especially the creature of circumstances, a weak and 
plastic man. He is the Ahab of the New Testament, 
and it is a curious coincidence that he should have to 
do with its Elijah. As Ahab fasted when he heard his 
doom, and postponed the evil by his submission, so 
Herod was impressed and agitated by the teaching of 
the Baptist. But Ahab surrendered his soul to the 
imperious Jezebel, and Herod was ruined by Herodias. 
Each is the sport of strong influences from without, 
and warrs us that a man, no more than a ship, can 
hope by drifting to come safe to haven. 


¥72 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR. 





No contrast could be imagined more dramatie than 
between the sleek seducer of his brother’s wife and the 
imperious reformer, rude in garment and frugal of fare, 
thundering against the generation of vipers who were 
the chiefs cf his religion. 

How were these two brought together? Did the 
Baptist stride unsummoned into the court? Did his 
crafty foemen contrive his ruin by inciting the Tetrarch 
toconsult him? Or did that restless religious curiosity, 
which afterwards desired to see Jesus, lead Herod to 
consult his forerunner? The abrupt words of John 
are not unlike an answer to some feeble question of 
casuistry, some plea of extenuating circumstances such 
as all can urge in mitigation of their worst deeds. He 
simply and boldly states the inflexible ordinance of 
God: It is not lawful for thee to have her. 

What follows may teach us much. 

1. It warns us that good inclinations, veneration for 
holiness in others, and ineffectual struggles against our 
own vices, do not guarantee salvation. He who feels 
them is not God-forsaken, since every such emotion is 
a grace. But he must not infer that he never may be 
forsaken, or that because he is not wholly indifferent 
or disobedient, God will some day make him all that 
his better moods desire. Such a man should be warned 
by Herod Antipas. Ruggedly and abruptly rebuked, 
his soul recognised and did homage to the truthfulness 
of his teacher, Admiration replaced the anger in which 
he cast him into prison. As he stood between him 
and the relentless Herodias, and “kept him safely,” he 
perhaps believed that the gloomy dungeon, and the 
utter interruption of a great career, were only for the 
Baptist’s preservation. Alas, there was another cause, 
He was “much perplexed”: he dared not provoke his 


Maik vi. ~ y-29.4 ITE ROD. 173 


temptress by releasing the man of God. And thus 
temporizing, and daily weakening the voice of con- 
science by disobedience, he was lost. 

2. It is distinctly a bad omen that he “heard him 
gladly,” since he had no claim to well-founded reli- 
gious happiness. Our Lord had already observed the 
shallowness of men who immediately with joy receive 
the word, yet have no root. But this guilty man, 
disquieted by the reproaches of memory and the 
demands of conscience, found it a relief to hear stern 
truth, and to see from far the beauteous light of 
righteousness. He would not reform his life, but he 
would fain keep his sensibilities alive. It was so that 
Italian brigands used to maintain a priest. And it 
is so that fraudulent British tradesmen too frequently 
pass for religious men. People cry shame on their 
hypocrisy. Yet perhaps they less often wear a mask 
to deceive others than a cloke to keep their own hearts 
warm, and should not be quoted to prove that religion 
is a deceit, but as witnesses that even the most worldly 
soul craves as much of it as he can assimilate. So it 
was with Herod Antipas. 

3. But no man can serve two masters. He who re- 
fuses the command of God to choose whom he will serve, 
in calmness and meditation, when the means of grace 
and the guidance of the Spirit are with him, shall hear 
some day the voice of the Tempter, derisive and trium- 
phant, amid evil companions, when flushed with guilty 
excitements and with sensual desires, and deeply com- 
mitted by rash words and “ honour rooted in dishonour,” 
bidding him choose now, and choose finally. Salome 
will tolerate neither weak hesitation nor half measures ; 
she must herself possess “ forthwith” the head of her 
mother’s foe, which is worth more than half the ki: gdum, 


174 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





since his influence might rob them of it all. And the 
king was exceeding sorry, but chose to be a murderer 
rather than be taken for a perjurer by the bad cem- 
panions who sat with him. What a picture of a craven 
soul, enslaved even in the purple. And of the meshes 
for his own feet which that man weaves, who gathers 
around him such friends that their influence will surely 
mislead his lonely soul in its future struggles to be 
virtuous. What a lurid light does this passage throw 
upon another and a worse scene, when we meet Herod 
again, not without tne tyrannous influence of his men 
of war. 

4. We learn the mysterious interconnection of sin | 
with sin. Vicious luxury and self-indulgence, the 
plastic feebleness of character which half yields to John, 
yet cannot break with Herodias altogether, these do not 
seem likely to end in murder. They have scarcely 
strength enough, we feel, for a great crime. Alas, they 
have feebleness enough for it, for he who joins in the 
dance of the graces may give his hand to the furies 
unawares. Nothing formidable is to be seen in Herod, 
up to the fatal moment when revelry, and the influence 
of his associates, and the graceful dancing of a woman 
whose beauty was pitiless, urged him irresistibly for- 
ward to bathe his shrinking hands in blood. And from 
this time forward he is a lost man. When a greater 
than John is reported to be working miracles, he has a 
wild explanation for the new portent, and his agitation 
is betrayed in his broken words, “ John, whom I be-. 
headed, he is risen.” “ For” St. Mark adds with quiet 
but grave significance, ‘ Herod himself had sent forth 
and laid hold upon John, and bound him.” Others might 
speak of a mere teacher, but the conscience of Herod. 
will not si ffer it to be so; itis his victim ; he has learnt: 


Mark vi, 14-29.] HEROD. 175 





the secret of eternity; ‘(and therefore do these powers 
work in him.” Yet Herod was a Sadducee. 

5. These words are dramatic enough to prove them- 
selves; it would have tasked Shakespere to invent them. 
But they involve -he ascription from the first of unearthly 
powers to Jesus, and they disprove, what sceptics would 
fain persuade us, that miracles were inevitably ascribed, 
by the credulity of the age, to all great teachers, since 
John wrought none, and the astonishing theory that 
he had graduated in another world, was invented by 
Herod to account for those of Jesus. How inevitable 
it was that such a man should set at nought our Lord. 
Dread, and moral repulsion, and the suspicion that he 
himself was the mark against which all the powers of 
the avenger would be directed, these would not produce 
a mood in which to comprehend One who did not strive 
nor cry. To them it was a supreme relief to be able to 
despise Christ. 

Elsewhere we can trace the gradual cessation of the 
alarm of Herod. At first he dreads the presence of the 
new Teacher, and yet dares not assail Him openly. 
And so, when Jesus was advised to go thence or Herod 
would kill Him, He at once knew who had instigated 
the crafty monition, and sent back his defiance to that 
fox. But even fear quickly dies in a callous heart, and 
only curiosity survives. Herod is soon glad to see 
Jesus, and hopes that He may work a miracle. For 
religious curiosity and the love of spiritual excitement 
often survive grace, just as the love of stimulants sur- 
vives the healthy appetite for bread. But our Lord, 
Who explained so much for Pilate, spoke not a word to 
him. And the wretch, whom once the forerunner had 
all but won, now set the Christ Himself at nought, and 
mocked Him. So yet does the God of this world blind 


176 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





the eyes of the unbelieving. So great are st ll the 
dangers of hesitation, since not to be for Christ is to 
be against Him. 

6. But the blood of the martyr was not shed before 
his work was done. As the falling blossom admits the 
sunshine to the fruit, so the herald died when his 
influence might have clashed with the growing influence 
of his Lord, Whom the Twelve were at last trained to 
proclaim far and wide. At a stroke, his best followers 
were naturally transferred to Jesus, Whose way he had 
prepared. Rightly, therefore, has St. Mark placed the 
narrative at this juncture, and very significantly does 
St. Matthew relate that his disciples, when they had 
buried him, “ came and told Jesus.” 

Upon the path of our Lord Himself this violent death 
fell as a heavy shadow. Nor was He unconscious of 
its menace, for after the transfiguration He distinctly 
connected with a prediction of His own death, the fact 
that they had done to Elias also whatsoever they listed. 
Such connections of thought help us to realise the truth, 
that not once only, but throughout His ministry, He 
Who bids us bear our cross while we follow Him, was 
consciously bearing His own. We must not limit to 
“three days” the sorrows which redeemed the world. 


BREAD IN THE DESERT. 


** And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and th-y 
told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they 
had taught. And He saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a 
desert place, and rest awhile. For there were many coming and going, 
and they had no lei ure so much as to eat. And they went away in 
the boat toa desert place apart. And the people saw them going, and 
many knew ¢kem, and they ran there together on foot from all the 
cities, and outwent them. And He came forth and siw a great 
multitude, and He had compassion on them, because they were as 


Mark vi. 30-46.] BREAD IN THE DESERT. 177 





sheep not having a shepherd: and He began to teach them many 
things. And when the day was now far spent, His disciples came 
unto Him, and said, The place is desert, and the day is now far spent : 
send them away, that they may go into the country and villages round 
about. and buy themselves somewhat to eat. But He answered and 
said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto Him, Shall 
we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to 
eat? And He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go amd 
see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. And He 
commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon the 
green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. 
And He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to 
heaven, He blessed, and brake the loaves ; and He gave to the disciples 
to set before them; and the two fishes divided He among them ail. 
And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up broken pieces, 
twelve basketfuls, and also of the fishes. And they that ate the loave 
were five thousand men. And straightway He constrained His 
disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before Az unto the other 
side to Bethsaida, while He Himself sendeth the multitude away. 
And after He had taken leave of them He departed into the mountain 
to pray.’ —MArK vi. 30-46 (R.V.). 
Tue Apostles, now first called by that name, because 
now first these ‘‘ Messengers” had carried the message 
of their Lord, returned and told Him all, the miracles 
they had performed, and whatever they had taught. 
From the latter clause it is plain that to preach “ that 
men should repent,” involved arguments, motives, pro- 
mises, and perhaps threatenings which rendered it no 
meagre announcement. It is in truth a demand which 
involves free will and responsibility as its bases, and 
has hell or heaven for the result of disobedience or 
compliance. Into what controversies may it have led 
these first preachers of Jesus! All was now submitted 
to the judgment of their Master. And happy are they 
still who do not shrink from the healing pain of 
bringing all their actions and words to Him, and 
hearkening what the Lord will speak. 

Upon the whole, they brought a record of success, 

12 


178 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


And around Him also were so many coming and going 
that they had no leisure so much as to eat. Where- 
upon Jesus draws them Rin to rest awhile. For the 
balance must never be for between the outer and 
the inner life. The Lord Himself spent the follow- 
ing night in prayer, until He saw the distress of His 
disciples, and came to them upon the waves. And the 
‘time was at hand when they, who now rejoiced that 
the devils were subject unto them, should learn by 
sore humiliation and defeat that this kind goeth not. 
forth except by prayer. We may be certain: that it 
was not bodily repose alone that Jesus desired for his’ 
flushed and excited ambassadors, in the hour of their 
success. And yet bodily repose also at such a time is 
healing, and in the very pause, the silence, the-vess= 
ation of the rush, pressure, and excitement of every 
conspicuous career, there is an opportunity and éven a 
suggestion of calm and humble recollection of thé soul. 
Accordingly they crossed in the boat to some quiet spot, 
open and unreclaimed, but very far from such dreari- 
ness as the mention of a desert suggests tous. But 
the people saw Him, and watched His course, while out- 
running him along the coast, and their numbers were 
augmented from every town as they poured through it, 
until He came forth and saw a great multitude, and 
knew that His quest of solitude was baffled. Few 
things are more trying than the world’s remorseless 
intrusion upon one’s privacy, and subversions of plans 
which one has laid, not for himself alone. But Jesus 
was as thoughtful for the multitude as He had just 
shown Himself to be for His disciples. Not to petu- 
lance but to compassion did their urgency excite Him; 
for as they streamed across the wilderness, far from’ 
believing upon Him, but yet conscious of sore neéd, 





Mark vi. 30-46.] BREAD IN THE DESERT. 179 


unsatisfied with the doctrine of their professional 
teachers, and just bereaved of the Baptist, they seemed 
in the desert like sheep that had no shepherd. And 
He patiently taught them many things. 

_ Nor was He careful only for their souls. We have 
now reached that remarkable miracle which alone is 
related by all the four Evangelists. And the narratives, 
while each has its individual and peculiar points, 
corroborate each other very strikingly. All four men- 
tion the same kind of basket, quite different from what 
appears in the feeding of the four thousand. St. John 
alone tells us that it was the season of the Passover, 
the middle of the Galilean spring-time ; but yet this 
agrees exactly with St. Mark’s allusion to the ‘ green 
grass ” which summer has not yet dried up. All four 
have recorded that Jesus ‘‘ blessed” or “ gave thanks,” 
and three of them that He looked up to heaven whiie 
doing so. What was there so remarkable, so intense 
or pathetic in His expression, that it should have 
won this three-fold celebration ? If we remember the 
symbolical meaning of what He did, and that as His 
hands were laid upon the bread which He would break, 
so His own body should soon be broken for the relief 
of the hunger of the world, how can we doubt that 
absolute self-devotion, infinite love, and pathetic resig- 
nation were in that wonderful look, which never could 
be forgotten ? 

There could have been but few women and children 
among the multitudes who “outran Jesus,” and these 
few would certainly have been trodden down if a rush 
of strong and hungry men for bread had taken place. 
Therefore St. John mentions that while Jesus bade 
‘the people” to be seated, it was the men who were 
actually arranged (vi. 10 R.V.). Groups of fifty were 


180 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








easy to keep in order, and a hundred of these were easily 
counted. And thus it comes to pass that we know 
that there were five thousand men, while the women 
and children remained unreckoned, as St. Matthew 
asserts, and St. Mark implies. This is a kind of 
harmony which we do not find in two versions of any 
legend. Nor could any legendary impulse have ima- 
gined the remarkable injuction, which impressed all 
four Evangelists, to be frugal when it would seem that 
the utmost lavishness was pardonable. They were 
not indeed bidden to gather up fragments left behind 
upon the ground, for thrift is not meanness; but the 
“broken pieces” which our Lord had provided over and 
above should not be lost. ‘This union of economy 
with creative power,” said Olshausen, “could never 
have been invented, and yet Nature, that Inirror of 
the Divine perfections, exhibits the same combination 
of bound!ess munificence with truest frugality.” And 
Godet adds the excellent remark, that “a gift so 
obtained was not to be squandered.” 

There is one apparent discord to set against these 
remarkable harmonies, and it will at least serve to 
show that they are not calculated and artificial. 

St. John represents Jesus as the first to ask Philip, 
Whence are we to buy bread? whereas the others 
represent the Twelve as urging upon Him the need to 
dismiss the multitude, at so late an hour, from a place 
so 1il provided. The inconsistency is only an apparent 
one. It was early in the day, and upon “seeing a 
great company come unto Him,” that Jesus questioned 
Philip, who might have remembered an Old Testament 
precedent, when Elisha said ‘Give unto the people that 
they may eat. And his servitor said, What? shall I 
set this before an hundred men? He said, agaih.. . 


Mark vi. 30-46.] BKEAD IN THE DESERT. 181 


they shall both eat and shall also leave thereof.” But 
the faith of Philip did not respond, and if any hope of 
a miracle were excited, it faded as time passed over. 
Hours later, when the day was far spent, the Twelve, 
now perhaps excited by Philip’s misgiving, and repeat- 
ing his calculation about the two hundred pence, urge 
Jesus to dismiss the multitude. They took no action 
until ‘‘the time was already past,” but Jesus saw the 
end from the beginning. And surely the issue taught 
them not to distrust their Master's power. Now the 
same power is for ever with the Church; and our 
heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of food 
and raiment. 

Even in the working of a miracle, the scantiest 
means vouchsafed by Pvovidence are not despised. 
Jesus takes the barley-loaves and the fishes, and so 
teaches all men that true faith is remote indeed from 
the fanaticism which neglects any resources brought 
within the reach of our study and our toil. And to 
show how really these materials were employed, the 
broken pieces which they gathered are expressly said 
to have been composed of the barley-loaves and of 
the fish. 

Indeed it must be remarked that in no miracle of the 
Gospel did Jesus actually create. He makes no new 
members of the body, but restores old useless ones, 
“And so, without a substratum to work upon He 
creates neither bread nor wine.” To do this would not 
have been a vrhit more difficult, but it would have ex- 
pressed less aptly His mission, which was not to create 
a new system of thing, sbut to renew the old, to recover 
the lost sheep, and to heal the sick at heart. 

Every circumstance of this miracle is precious. 
That vigilant care for the weak which made the people 


182 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





sit down in groups, and await their turn to be supplied, 
is a fine example of the practical eye for details which 
was never, before or since, so perfectly united with 
profound thought, insight into the mind of God and the 
wants of the human race. 

The words, Give ye them to eat, may serve as an 
eternal rebuke to the helplessness of the Church, face 
to face with a starving world, and regarding her own 
scanty resources with dismay. In the presence of 
heathenism, of dissolute cities, and of semi-pagan pea- 
santries, she is ever looking wistfully to some costly 
far-off supply. And her Master is ever bidding her 
believe that the few loaves and fishes in. her hand, if 
blessed and distributed by Him, will satisfy the — 
of mankind. 

For in truth He is Himself this bread. All that 
the Gospel of St. John explains, underlies the narratives 
of the four. And shame on us, with Christ given to 
us to feed and strengthen us, if we think our resources 
scanty, if we grudge to share them with mankind, if we 
let our thoughts wander away to the various palliatives 
for human misery and salves for human anguish, which 
from time to time gain the credence of an hour; if we 
_ send the hungry to the country and villages round 
about, when Christ the dispenser of the Bread of souls, 
for ever present in His Church, is saying, They need 
not depart, give ye them to eat. 

The sceptical explanations of this narrative are 
exquisitely ludicrous. .One tells us how, finding them- 
selves in a desert, “thanks to their extreme frugality 
they were able to exist, and this was naturally” (what, 
naturally ?).“regarded as a miracle.” This is called 
the legendary explanation, and every one can judge 
for himself how much it succeeds in explaining to him. 


Mark vi. 30-46.] BREAD IN THE DESERT. 183 


Another tells us that Jesus being greater than Moses, 
it was felt that Me must have outstripped him in 
miraculous power. And so the belief grew up that as 
Moses fed a nation during forty years, with angels’ 
food, He, to exceed this, must have bestowed upon 
five thousand men one meal of barley bread. 

This is called the mythical explanation, and the 
credulity which accepts it must not despise Christians, 
who only believe their Bibles. 

Jesus had called away His followers to rest. The 
multitude which beheld this miracle was full of pas- 
sionate hate against the tyrant, upon whose hands the 
blood of the Baptist was still warm. All they wa :ted 
was a leader. And now they would fain hae tiken 
Jesus by force to thrust this perilous honour upon Him. 
Therefore He sent away His disciples first, that am- 
bition and hope might not agitate and secularise their 
minds; and when He had dismissed the multitude He 
Himself ascended the neighbouring mountain, to cool 
His frame with the pure breezes, and to refresh His 
Holy Spirit by communion with His Father. Prayer 
was natural to Jesus; but think how much more needful 
is it tous. And yet perhaps we have never taken one 
hour from sleep for God. 





JESUS WALKING ON THE WATER™ 
Mark vi. 47-52 (R.V.). 
(See iv. 36, pp. 133—140.) 


184 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





UNWASHEN HANDS, 


** And when they had crossed over, they came to the land unto Gene 
nesaret, and moored to the shore. . . , Making void the word of God 
by your tradition, which ye have delivered : and many such like things 
ye do.”—MaRK vi. 53-vii. 13 (R.V.). 


Tuer; is a condition of mind which readily accepts the 
temporal blessings of religion, and yet neglects, and 
perhaps despises, the spiritual truths which they ratify 
and seal When Jeaus landed on Gensecneaaan 
straightway known, and as He passed through the 
district, there was hasty bearing of all the sick to meet 
Him, laying them in public places, and beseeching Him 
that they might touch, if_no more, the border of His 
garment. By the faith which believed in so easy a cure, 
a timid woman had recently won signal commendation, 
But the very fact that her cure had become public, 
while it accounts for the action of these crowds, de- 
prives it of any special merit. We only read that 
as many as touched Him were made whole. And we 
know that just now He was forsaken by many even of 
His disciples, and had to ask His very apostles, Will 
ye also go away ? 

Thus we find these two conflicting movements: 
among the sick and their friends a profound persuasion 
that He can heal them; and among those whom He 
would fain teach, resentment and revolt against His 
doctrine. The combination is strange, but we dare not 
call it unfamiliar. We see the opposing tendencies 
even in the same man, for sorrow and pain drive to 
His knees many a one who will not take upon His neck 
the easy yoke. Yet how absurd it is to believe in 
Christ’s goodness and His power, and still to dare to 
sin against Him, still to reject the inevitable inference 


Mark vi. 53 viier3.] UNWASHEN HANDS. 185 


that His teaching must bring bliss. Men ought to ask 
themselves what is involved when they pray to Christ 
and yet refuse to serve Him. 

As Jesus moved thus around the district, and 
responded so amply to their supplication that His very 
raiment was charged with health as if with electricity, 
which leaps out at a touch, what an effect He must 
have produced, even upon the ceremonial purity of the 
district. Sickness meant defilement, net for the sufferer 
alone, but for his friends, his nurse, and the bearers of 
his little pallet. By the recovery of one sick man, a 
fountain of Levitical pollution was dried up. And the 
harsh and rigid legalist ought to have perceived that 
from his own point of view the pilgrimage of Jesus was 
like the breath of spring upon a garden, to restore its 
freshness and bloom. 

It was therefore an act of portentous waywardness 
when, at this juncture, a complaint was made of His 
indifference to ceremonial cleanness. For of course a 
charge against His disciples was really a complaint 
against the influence which guided them so ill. 

It was not a disinterested complaint. Jerusalem 
vias alarmed at the new movement resulting from the 
mission of the Twelve, their miracles, and the mighty 
works which He Himself had lately wrought. And a 
deputation of Pharisees and scribes came from this 
centre of ecclesiastical prejudice, to bring Him to 
account. They do not assail His doctrine, nor charge 
Him with violating the law itself, for He had put to 
shame their querulous complaints about the sabbath 
day. But tradition was altogether upon their side: it 
Was a weapon ready sharpened for their use against 
‘one so free, unconventional and fearless. 

The law had imposed certain restrictions upon the 


186 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





chosen race, restrictions which were admirably sanitary 
in their nature, while aiming also at preserving the 
isolation of Israel from the corrupt and foul nations 
which lay around. All such restrictions were now 
about to pass away, because religion was to become 
aggressive, it was henceforth to invade the nations 
from whose inroads it had heretofore sought a covert, 
But the Pharisees had not been content even with the 
severe restrictions of the law. They had not regarded 
these as a fence for themselves against spiritual im- 
purity, but as an elaborate and artificial substitute for 
love _and trust. And therefore, as Tove and spiritual 
religion faded out of their hearts, they were the more 
jealous and sensitive about the letter of the law. They 
“fenced” it with elaborate rules, and precautions against 
accidental transgressions, superstitiously dreading an 
involuntary infraction of its minutest details. Certain 
substances were unclean food. But who could te 
whether some atom of such substance, blown about in 
the dust of summer, might adhere to the hand with 
which he ate, or to the cups and pots whence his food 
was drawn ? Moreover, the Gentile nations were un- 
clean, and it was not possible to avoid all contact with 
them in the market-places, returning whence, therefore, 
every devout Jew was careful to wash himself, which 
washing, though certainly not an immersion, is here 
plainly called a baptism. Thus an elaborate system 
of ceremonial washing, not for cleansing, but as a reli- 
gious precaution, had grown up among the Jews, 

But the disciples of Jesus had begun to learn their 
emancipation. Deeper and more spiritual conceptions 
of God and man and duty had grown upin them. And 
the Pharisees saw that they ate their bread with un- 
washen hands. It availed nothing that half a population 


TS? Ves 


Mark vi. 53-vii. 13.] UNWASHEN HANDS. 187 





owed purity and health to their Divine benevolence, if in 
the process the letter of a tradition were infringed. It 
was necessary to expostulate with Jesus, because they 
walked not according to the tradition of the elders, that 
dried skin of an old orthodoxy in which prescription 
and routine would ever fain shut up the seething 
enthusiasms and insights of the present time. 

With such attempts to restrict and cramp the free 
life of the soul, Jesus could have no sympathy. He 
knew well that an exaggerated trust in any form, any 
routine or ritual whatever, was due to the need of some 
stay and support for hearts which have ceased to trust 
in a Father of souls. But He chose to leave them 
without excuse by showing their transgression of actual 
precepts which real reverence for God would have 
respected. Like books of etiquette for people who 
- have not the instincts of gentlemen ; so do ceremonial 
religions spring up where the instinct of respect for the 
will of God is dull or dead. Accordingly Jesus quotes 
against these Pharisees a distinct precept, a word not 
of their fathers, but of God, which their tradition had 
caused them to trample upon. If any genuine reverence 
for His commandment had survived, it would have 
been outraged by such a collision between the text and 
the gloss, the precept and the precautionary supple- 
ment. But they had never felt the incongruity, never 
been jealous enough for the commandment of God to 
revolt against the encroaching tradition which insulted 
it. The case which Jesus gave, only as one of “ many 
such like things,” was an abuse of the system of 
vows, and of dedicated property. It would seem that 
from the custom of “devoting” a man’s property, 
and thus putting it beyond his further control, had 
grown up the abuse of consecrating it with such 


188 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





limitations, that it should still be available for the 
owner, but out of his power to give to others. And 
thus, by a spell as abject as the taboo of the South Sea 
islanders, a man glorified God by refusing help to his 
father and mother, without being at all the poorer for 
the so-called consecration of his means. And even if 
he awoke up to the shameful nature of his deed, it was 
too late, for “‘ye no longer suffer him to do ought for 
his father or his mother.” And yet Moses had made 
it a capital offence to ‘‘ speak evil of father or mother.” 
Did they then allow such slanders? Not at all, and so 
they would have refused to confess any aptness in the 
quotation. But Jesus was not thinking of the letter of 
a precept, but of the spirit and tendency of a religion, 
to which they were blind. With what scorn He re- 
garded their miserable subterfuges, is seen by His 
vigorous word, “ full well do ye make void the com- 
mandment of God that ye may keep your traditions.” 
Now the root of all this evil was unreality. It was 
not merely because their heart was far from God that 
they invented hollow formalisms ; indifference leads to 
neglect, not to a perverted and fastidious earnestness. 
But while their hearts were earthly, they had learned 
to honour God with their lips. The judgments which 
had sent their fathers into exile, the pride of their 
unique position among the nations, and the self-interest 
of privileged classes, all forbade them to neglect the 
worship in which they had no joy, and which, therefore, 
they were unable to follow as it reached out into 
infinity, panting after God, a living God. There was 
no principle of life, growth, aspiration, in their dull 
obedience. And what could it turn into but a routine, 
a ritual, a verbal homage, and the honour of the lips 
only? And how could such a worship fail to shelter 


Mark vi. §3-vii. 13.] UNWASHEN HANDS. 189 





itself in evasions from the heart-searching earnestness 
of a law which was spiritual, while the worshipper was 
carnal and sold under sin ? 

It was inevitable that collisions should arise. And 
the same results will always follow the same causes, 
Wherever men bow the knee for the sake of respect- 
ability, or because they dare not absent themselves 
from the outward haunts of piety, yet fail to love God 
and their neighbour, there will the form outrage the 
spirit, and in vain will they worship, teaching as their 
doctrines the traditions of men. 

Very completely indeed was the relative position of 
Jesus and His critics reversed, since they had expressed 
pain at the fruitless effort of His mother to speak with 
Him, and He had seemed to set the meanest disciple 
upon a level with her. But He never really denied the 
voice of nature, and they never really heard it. An 
affectation of respect would have satisfied their heart- 
less formality: He thought it the highest reward of 
discipleship to share the warmth of His love. And 
therefore, in due time, it was seen that His critics 
were all unconscious of the wickedness of filial neglect 
which set His heart on fire, 


CHAPTER VIL. 
THINGS WHICH DEFILE. 


** And He called to Him the multitude again, and said unto them, 
IIear Me all of you, and understand : there is nothing from without 
the man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which 
proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. And when He 
was entered into the house from the multitude, His disciples asked of 
Him the parable. And He saith unto them, Are ye so without under- 
standing also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth 
into the man, z¢ cannot defile him; because it goeth not into his heart, 
but into his belly, and gveth out into the draught? This He said, 
making all meats clean. And He said, That which proceedeth out of 
the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of 
men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 
covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, 
pride, foolishness : all these evil things proceed from within, and defile 
the man.”"—MAkkK vii. 14-23 (R.V.). 


HEN Jesus had exposed the hypocrisy of the 

Pharisees, He took a bold and significant step. 
Calling the multitude to Him, He publicly announced 
that no diet can really pollute the soul; only its cwn 
actions and desires can do that: not that which en- 
tereth into the man can defile him, but the things 
which proceed out of the man. 

He does not as yet proclaim the abolition of the law, 
but He surely declares that it is only temporary, 
because it is conventional, not rooted in the eternal 
distinctions between right and wrong, but artificial. 
And He shows that its time is short indeed, by charg- 


Mark vii. 14-23.] ZAINGS WHICH DEFILE. bi) 3 





ing the multitude to understand how limited is its 
reach, how poor are its effects. 

Such teaching, addressed with marked emphasis to 
the public, the masses, whom the Pharisees despised 
as ignorant of the law, and cursed, was a defiance 
indeed. And the natural consequence was an opposi- 
tion so fierce that He was driven to betake Himself, 
for the only time, and like Elijah in his extremity, to a 
Gentile land. And yet there was abundant evidence in 
the Old Testament itself that the precepts of the law 
were not the life of souls. David ate the shewbread. 
The priests profaned the sabbath. Isaiah spiritualized 
fasting. Zechariah foretold the consecration of the 
Philistines. Whenever the spiritual energies of the 
ancient saints received a fresh access, they were seen 
to strive against and shake off some of the trammels of 
a literal and servile legalism. The doctrine of Jesus 
explained and justified what already was felt by the 
foremost spirits in Israel. 

When they were alone, “ the disciples asked of Him 
the parable,” that is, in other words, the saying which 
they felt to be deeper than they understood, and full 
of far-reaching issues. But Jesus rebuked them for 
not understanding what uncleanness really meant. 


For Him, defilement-was badness, a condition of the 
soul. And_therefore meats could _not defle-a_man, 
because they did not_rea but_only. the 


bodily organs. In so doing, as St. Mark plainly adds, 
He made all meats clean, and thus pronounced the 
doom of Judaism, and the new dispensation of the 
Spirit. In truth, St. Paul did little more than expand 


this memorable saying. ‘‘ Nothing that goeth into a 
man can defile him,” here is the germ of all the decision, — 


about idol meats—“ neither if ‘one’ eat is he the better, 


— 


192 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





neither if he eat not is he the worse.” ‘“ The things 
which proceed out of the man are those which defile 
the man,” here is the germ of all the demonstration 
that love fulfils the law, and that our true need is to 
be renewed inwardly, so that we may bring fort it2— 
ante God. 

But the true pollution of the man comes from within; 
and the life is stained be t isimpure. For 
from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts pro- 
ceed, like the uncharitable and bitter judgments of His 
accusers—and thence come also the sensual indulgences 
which men_ascribe to the flesh, but which depraved 
imaginations excite, and love of God and their neigh- 
bour would restrain—and thence are the sins of 
violence which men excuse by pleading sudden pro- 
vocation, whereas the spark led to a conflagratio 
because the heart was a dry fuel—and thence, plainly 
enough, come deceit and railing, pride and folly. 

It is a hard saying, but our conscience acknowledges 
the truth of it. We are not the toy of circumstances, 
but such as we have made ourselves; and our lives 
would have been pure if the stream had flowed from 
a pure fountain. However modern sentiment may re- 
joice in highly coloured pictures of the noble profligate 
and his pure minded and elegant victim; of the brigand 
or the border ruffian full of kindness, with a heart as 
gentle as his hands are red; and however true we 
may fee] it to be that the worst heart may never have 
betrayed itself by the worst actions, but many that are 
first shall be last, it still continues to be the fact, and 
undeniable when we do not sophisticate our judgment, 
that “all these evil things proceed from within.” 

Itis also true that they “further defile the man.” The 
corruption which already existed in_the heart_i 





Mark vii. 14-23.] THINGS WHICH DEFILE. 193 


worse by passing into action; shame and fear are 
weakened; the will is confirmed in evil; a gap is 
opened or widened between the man who commits a 
new sin, and the virtue on which he has turned his 
back. Few, alas! are ignorant of the defiling power of 
a bad action, or even of a sinful thought deliberately 
harboured, and the harbouring of which is really an 
action, a decision of the will. 

This word which makes all meats clean, ought for 
ever to decide the question whether certain drinks are 
in the abstract unlawful for a Christian. 

We must remember that it leaves untouched the 
question, what restrictions may be necessary for men 
who have depraved and debased their own appetites, 
until innocent indulgence does reach the heart and 
pervert it. Hand and foot are innocent, but men there 
are who cannot enter into life otherwise than halt or 
maimed. Also it leaves untouched the question, as long 
as such men exist, how far may I be privileged to 
share and so to lighten the burden imposed on them 
by past transgressions? It is surely a noble sign of 
religious life in our day, that many thousands can say, 
as the Apostle said, of innocent joys, “ Have we not a 
right? ... Nevertheless we did not use this right, but 
we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance 
to the gospel of Christ.” 

Nevertheless the rule is absolute: ‘‘ Whatsoever from 
without goeth into the man, it cannot defile him.” 
And the Church of Christ is bound to maintain, un- 
compromised and absolute, the liberty of Christian 
souls. 

Let us not fail to contrast such teaching as this 
of Jesus with that of our modern materialism. 

“The value of meat and drink is perfectly trans- 

13 


104 GUSFEL OF ST. MARK. 








cendental,” says one. “Man is what he eats,” says 
another. But it is enough to make us tremble, to ask 
what will issue from such teaching if it ever grasps 
firmly the mind of a single generation. What will 
become of honesty, when the value of what may be 
had by theft is transcendental ? How shall armies be 
persuaded to suffer hardness, and populations to famish 
within beleaguered walls, when they learn that ‘ man is 
what he eats,” so that his very essence is visibly en- 
feebled, his personality starved out, as he grows pale 
and wasted underneath his country’s flag? In vain 
shall such a generation strive to keep alive the flame 
of generous self-devotion. Self-devotion seemed to 
their fathers to be the noblest attainment; to them 
it can be only a worn-out form of speech to say that 
the soul can overcome the flesh. For to them the man 
ts the flesh; he is the resultant of his nourishment ; 
what enters into the mouth makes his character, for 
it makes him all. 

There is that within us all which knows better; 
which sets against the aphorism, “ Man is what he 
eats;” the text ‘‘ As a man thinketh in his heart so is 
he ;” whict. will always spurn the doctrine of the brute, 
when it is boldly confionted with the dectrine of the 


Crucified. 


Mark vii. 24-30.] THE CHILDREN AND THE DOGS. 195 





—_. 





THE CHILDREN AND THE DOGS. 


© And from thence He arose, and went away into the borders of 
Tyre and Sidon. And He entered into a house, and would have no 
man know it: and He could not be hid. But straightway a woman, 
whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of Him, 
came and fell down at His feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a 
Syrophcenician by race. And she besought Him that He would cast 
forth the devil out of her daughter. And He said unto her, Let the 
children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread 
and cast it to the dogs. But she answered and saith unto Him, Yea, 
Lord : even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. 
And He said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone 
out of thy daughter. And she went away unto her house, and found 
the child laid upon the bed, and the devil gone out.”—MarkK vii. 24-30 
(R.V.). 


THE ingratitude and perverseness of His countrymen 
have now driven Jesus into retirement “on the borders” 
of heathenism. It it is not clear that He has yet crossed 
the frontier, and some presumption to the contrary is 
found in the statement that a woman, drawn by a fame 
which had long since gone throughout all Syria, ‘came 
out of those borders” to reach Him. She was not only 
“a Greek” (by language or by creed as conjecture may 
decide, though very probably the word means little 
more than a Gentile), but even of the especially accursed 
race of Canaan, the reprobate of reprobates. And yet 
the prophet Zechariah had foreseen a time when the 
Philistine also should be a remnant for our God, and 
as a chieftain in Judah, and when the most stubborn 
race of all the Canaanites should be absorbed in Israel 
as thorcughly as that which gave Araunah to the kind- 
liest intercourse with David, for Ekron should be asa 
Jeousite (ix. 7). But the hour for breaking down the 
middle wall of partition was not yet fully come. Nor 
did any friend plead for this unhappy woman, that she 


196 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 4 





loved the nation and had built a synagogue; nothing 
as yet lifted her above the dead level of that paganism 
to which Christ, in the days of His flesh and upon 
earth, had no commission. Even the great champion 
and apostle of the Gentiles confessed that his Lord was 
a minister of the circumcision by the grace of God, and 
it was by His ministry to the Jews that the Gentiles 
were ultimately to be won. We need not be surprised 
therefore at His silence when she pleaded, for this 
might well be calculated to elicit some expression of 
faith, something to separate her from her fellows, and 
so enable Him to bless her without breaking down 
prematurely all distinctions. Also it must be con- 
sidered that nothing could more offend His country- 
men than to grant her prayer, while as yet it was 
impossible to hope for any compensating harvest among 
her fellows, such as had been reaped in Samaria, 
What is surprising is the apparent harshness of expres- 
sion which follows that silence, when even His disciples 
are induced to intercede for her. But theirs was only 
the softness which yields to clamour, as many people give 
alms, not to silent worth but to loud and pertinacious 
importunity. And they even presumed to thow their 
own discomfort into the scale, and urge as a reason for 
this intercession, that she crieth after ws. But Jesus 
was occupied with His mission, and unwilling to go 
farther than He was sent. 


In her agony she pressed nearer still to Him when ~ 


He refused, and worshipped Him, no longer as the Son 
of David, since what was Hebrew in His commission 
made against her; but simply appealed to His com- 
passion, calling Him Lord. The absence of these 
details from St. Mark's narrative is interesting, and 
shows the mistake of thinking that his Gospel is simply 


bia 


Mark vii. 24-30.] THE CHILDREN AND THE DOGS. 197 


the most graphic and the fullest. It is such when our 
Lord Himself is in action; its information is derived 
from one who pondered and told all things, not as they 
were pictorial in themselves, but as they illustrated the 
one great figure of the Son of man. And so the 
answer of Jesus is fully given, although it does not 
appear as if grace were poured into His lips. “ Let 
the children first be filled, for it is not meet to take 
the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.”. It 
might seem that sterner words could scarcely have 
been spoken, and that His kindness was only for the 
Jews, who even in their ingratitude were to the best 
of the Gentiles as children compared with dogs. Yet 
she does not contradict Him. Neither does she argue 
back,—for the words “ Truth, Lord, but...” have 
rightly disappeared from the Revised Version, and with 
them a certain contentious aspect which they give to her 
reply. On the contrary she assents, she accepts all the 
‘seeming severity of His view, because her penetrating 
faith has detected its kindly undertone, and the triple 
opportunity which it offers to a quick and confiding 
intelligence. It is indeed touching to reflect how im- 
pregnable was Jesus in controversy with the keenest 
intellects of Judaism, with how sharp a weapon He rent 
their snares, and retorted their arguments to their 
confusion, and then to observe Him inviting, tempting, 
preparing the way for an argument which would lead 
Ilim, gladly won, captive to a heathen’s and a woman’s 
importunate and trustful sagacity. It is the same 
Divine condescension which gave to Jacob his new 
name of Israel because he had striven with God and 
prevailed. 

And let us reverently ponder the fact that this pagan 
moiner of a demoniacal child, this woman whose name 


108 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





has perished, is the only person who won a dialectical 
victory in striving with the Wisdom of God; such a 
victory as a father allows to his eager child, when he 
raises gentle obstacles, and even assumes a transparent 
mask of harshness, but never passes the limit of the 
trust and love which he is probing. 

The first and most obvious opportunity which He 
gives to her is nevertheless hard to show in English. 
He might have used an epithet suitable for those fierce 
creatures which prowl through Eastern streets at night 
without any master, living upon refuse, a peril even to 
men who are unarmed. But Jesus used a diminutive 
word, not found elsewhere in the New Testament, and 
quite unsuitable to those fierce beasts, a word “in 
which the idea of uncleanness gives place to that of 
dependence, of belonging to man and to the family.” 
No one applies our colloquial epithet “doggie” to a 
fierce or rabid brute. Thus Jesus really domesticated 
the Gentile world. And nobly, eagerly, yet very 
modestly she used this tacit concession, when she 
repeated His carefully selected word, and inferred from 
it that her place was not among those vile “ dogs” 
which are “ without,” but with the domestic dogs, the 
little dogs underneath the table. 

Again, she observed the promise which lurked under 
seeming refusal, when He said, “ Let the children first 
be filled,” and so implied that her turn should come, 
that it was only a question of time. And so she 
answers that such dogs as He would make of her and 
hers do not fast utterly until their mealtime after the 
children have been satisfied ; they wait under the table, 
and some ungrudged fragments reach them there, some 
“ crumbs.” 

Moreover, and perhaps chiefly, the bread she craves 


Mark vii. 24-30.] THE CHIEZLREN AND THE DOGS. 199 


need not be torn from hungry children. Their Bene- 
factor has had to wander off into concealment, they have 
let fall, unheeding, not only crumbs, although her noble 
tact expresses it thus lightly to their countryman, but 
far more than she divined, even the very Bread of Life. 
Surely His own illustration has admitted her right to 
profit by the heedlessness of ‘the children.” And He 
had admitted allthis: He had meant to be thus overcome. 
One loves to think of the first flush of hope in that 
trembling mother’s heavy heart, as she discerned His 
intention and said within herself, ‘‘Oh, surely I am not 
mistaken ; He does not really refuse at all; He wills 
that I should answer Him and prevail.” One supposes 
that she looked up, half afraid to utter the great 
rejoinder, and took courage when she met His question- 
ing inviting gaze. 

And then comes the glad response, no longer spoken 
coldly and without an epithet : “ O woman, great is thy 
faith.” He praises not her adroitness nor her humility, 
but the faith which would not doubt, in that dark hour, 
that light was behind the cloud; and so He sets no 
other limit to His reward than the limit of her desires: 
“Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” 

Let us learn that no case is too desperate for prayer, 
and perseverance will surely find at last that our Lord 
delighteth to be gracious. Let us be certain that the 
brightest and most confiding view of all His dealings is 
the truest, and man, if only he trusts aright, shall live 
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 

Thus did Jesus declare, in action as in word, the 
fading out of all distinction between the ceremoniaily 
clean and unclean. He crossed the limits of the Holy 
Land: He found great faith in a daughter of tlic 
accursed race; and He ratified and acted upon her 


200 GOSPEL OF ST, MARK. 


claim that the bread which fell neglected from the table 
of the Jew was not forbidden to the hunger of the 
Gentile. The history of the Acts of the Apostles is 
already here in spirit. 





THE DEAF AND PUMB MAN. 


“* And again He went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through 
Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of 
Decapolis. And they bring unto Him one that was deaf, and had an 
impediment in his speech; and they beseech Him to lay His hand upon 
him. And He took him aside from the multitude privately, and put 
His fingers into his ears, and He spat, and touched His tongue; and 
looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that 
is, Be opened. And his ears were opened, and the bond of his tongue 
was loosed, and he spake plain. And Ile charged them that they 
should tell no man: but the more He charged them, so much the more 
a great deal they published it. And they were beyond measure as- 
tonished, saying, He hath done all things well: He maketh even the 
deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.” —MAnrkK vii. 31-37 (R.V.). 


THERE are curious and significant varieties in the methods 
by which our Saviour healed. We have seen Him, 
when watched on the sabbath by eager and expectant 
foes, baffling all their malice by a miracle without a 
deed, by refusing to cross the line of the most rigid 
and ceremonial orthodoxy, by only commanding an 
innocent gesture, Stretch forth thine hand. In sharp 
contrast with such a miracle is the one which we have 
now reached, There is brought to Him a man who is 
deaf, and whose speech therefore could not have been 
more than a babble, since it is by hearing that we learn 
to articulate; but of whom we are plainly told that he 
suffered from organic inability to utter as well as to 
hear, for he had an impediment in his speech, the string 
of his tongue needed to be loosed, and Jesus touched 
his tongue as well as his ears, to heal him. 


Mark vii. 31-37.1 7HZE DEAF AND DUMB MAN. 201 


It should be observed that no unbelieving theory 
can explain the change in our Lord’s method. Some 
pretend that all the stories of His miracles grew up 
afterward, from the sense of awe with which He was 
regarded. How does that agree with effort, sighing, 
and even gradation in the stages of recovery, following 
after the most easy, astonishing and instantaneous 
cures? Others believe that the enthusiasm of His 
teaching and the charm of His presence conveyed heal- 
ing efficacy to the impressible and the nervous. How 
does this account for the fact that His earliest miracles 
were the prompt and effortless ones, and as time passes 
on, He secludes the patient and uses agencies, as if 
the resistance to His power were more appreciable ? 
Enthusiasm would gather force with every new success. 

All becomes clear when we accept the Christian 
doctrine. Jesus came in the fulness of the love of God, 
with both hands filled with gifts. On His part there 
is no hesitation and no limit. But on the part of 
man there is doubt, misconception, and at last open 
hostility. A real chasm is opened between man and 
the grace He gives, so that, although not straitened in 
Him, they are straitened in their own affections. Even 
while they believe in Him as a healer, they no longer 
accept Him as their Lord. 

And Jesus makes it plain to them that the gift is no 
longer so easy, spontaneous and of public right as 
formerly. In His own country He could not do many 
mighty works. And now, returning by indirect routes, 
and privately, from the heathen shores whither Jewish 
enmity had driven Him, He will make the multitude 
feel a kind of exclusion, taking the patient from among 
them, as He does again presently in Bethsaida (chap. viii, 
23). There is also, in the deliberate act of seclusion’ 


. 
202 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





and in the means employed, a stimulus for the faith of 
the sufferer, which would scarcely have been needed 
a little while before. 

The people were unconscious of any reason why this 
cure should differ from former ones. And so they 
besought Jesus to lay His hand on him, the usual and 
natural expression for a conveyance of invisible power. 
But even if no other objection had existed, this action 
would have meant little to the deaf and dumb man, 
living in a silent world, and needing to have his faith 
aroused by some yet plainer sign. Jesus therefore 
removes him from the crowd whose curiosity would 
distract his attention—even as by affliction and pain He 
still isolates each of us at times from the world, shutting 
us up with God. 

He speaks the only language intelligible to such a 
man, the language of signs, putting His fingers into his 
ears as if to break a seal, conveying the moisture of 
His own lip to the silent tongue, as if to impart its 
faculty, and then, at what should have been the exultant 
moment of conscious and triumphant power, He sighed 
deeply. 

What an unexpected revelation of the man rather 
than the wonder worker. How unlike anything that 
theological myth or heroic legend would have invented. 
Perhaps, as Keble sings, He thought of those moral 
defects for which, in a responsible universe, no miracle 
may be wrought, of ‘the deaf heart, the dumb by 
choice.” Perhaps, according to Stier’s ingenious guess, 
He sighed because, in our sinful world, the gift of 
hearing is so doubtful a blessing, and the faculty of 
speech so apt to be perverted. One can almost imagine 
that no human endowment is ever given by Him Who 
knows all, without a touch of sadness. But it is more 


Mark vii. 31-37.] ZHE DEAF AND DUMB MAN. 203 


natural to suppose that He Who is touched with the 
feeling of our infirmities, and Who bare our sickness, 
thought upon the countless miseries of which this was 
but a specimen, and sighed for the perverseness by 
which the fulness of His compassion was being restrained. 
We are reminded by that sigh, however we explain it, 
that the only triumphs which made Him rejoice in 
Spirit were very different from displays of His physical 
ascendancy. 

It is interesting to observe that St. Mark, informed 
by the most ardent and impressible of the apostles, by 
him who reverted, long afterwards, to the voice which 
he heard in the holy mount, has recorded several of 
the Aramaic words which Jesus uttered at memorable 
junctures. ‘‘ Ephphatha, Be opened,” He said, and the 
bond of his tongue was loosed, and his speech, hitherto 
incoherent, became plain. But the Gospel which tells 
us the first word he heard is silent about what he said. 
Only we read, and this is suggestive enough, that the 
command was at once given to him, as well as to the 
bystanders, to keep silent. Not copious speech, but 
wise restraint, is what the tongue needs most to learn. 
To him, as to so many whom Christ had healed, the 
injunction came, not to preach without a commission, 
not to suppose that great blessings require loud an- 
nouncement, or unfit men for lowly and quiet places. 
Legend would surely have endowed with special 
eloquence the lips which Jesus unsealed. He charged 
them that they should tell no man. 

It was a double miracle, and the latent unbelief be- 
came clear of the very men who had hoped for some 
measure of blessing. For they were beyond measure 
astonished, saying He doeth all things well, celebrating 
the power which restored the hearing and the speech 


204 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR. 


together. Do we blame their previous incredulity ? 
Perhaps we also expect some blessing from our Lord, 
yet fail to bring Him all we have and all we are for 
blessing. Perhaps we should be astonished beyond 
measure if we received at the hands of Jesus a sanc- 
tification that extended to all sur powers, 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE FOUR 7hOUSAND. 


*° In those days, when there was again a great multitude, and they 
had nothing to eat, He called unto Him His disciples, and saith unto 
them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with 
Me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away 
fasting to their home, they will faint in the way ; and some of them are 
come from far. And His disciples answered Him, Whence shall one 
be able to fill these men with bread here in a desert place? And He 
asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And 
Iie commandeth the multitude to sit down on the ground : and He took 
the seven loaves, and having given thanks, He brake, and gave to His 
disciples, to set before them ; and they set them before the multitude. 
And they had a few small fishes : and having blessed them, He com- 
manded to set these also before them. And they did eat, and were 
filled : and they took up, of broken pieces that remained over, seven 
baskets. And they were about four thousand ; and He sent them away. 
And straightway He entered into the boat with His disciples, and 
came into the parts of Dalmanutha.”—Mark viii. I-10 (R.V.). 


E now come upon a miracle strangely similar to 

that of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. And 

it is worth while to ask what would have been the 
result, if the Gospels which contain this narrative had 
omitted the former one. Scepticism would have scruti- 
nized every difference between the two, regarding them 
as variations of the same story, to discover traces of 
the growth of the myth or legend, and entirely to dis- 
credit it. Now however it is plain that the events are 
quite distinct ; and we cannot doubt but that informa- 
tion as full would clear away as-completely many a 


206 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





perplexity which still entangles us. Archbishop Trench 
has well shown that the later narrative cannot have 
grown out of the earlier, because it has not grown at 
all, but fallen away. A new legend always “ outstrips 
the old, but here ... the numbers fed are smaller, 
the supply of food is greater, and the fragments that 
remain are fewer.” The latter point is however doubt- 
ful. It is likely that the baskets, though fewer, were 
larger, for in such a one St. Paul was lowered down 
over the wall of Damascus (Acts ix. 25). In all the 
Gospels the Greek word for baskets in the former 
miracle is different from the latter. And hence arises 
an interesting coincidence ; for when the disciples had 
gone into a desert place, and there gathered the frag- 
ments into wallets, each of them naturally carried one 
of these, and accordingly twelve were filled. But here 
they had recourse apparently to the large baskets of 
persons who sold bread, and the number seven remains 
unaccounted for. Scepticism indeed persuades itself 
that the whole story is to be spiritualized, the twelve 
baskets answering to the twelve apostles who distributed 
the Bread of Life, and the seven to the seven deacons, 
How came it then that the sorts of baskets are so well 
discriminated, that the inferior ministers are represented 
by the larger ones, and that the bread is not dealt out 
from these baskets but gathered into them ? 

The second repetition of such a work is a fine proof 
of that genuine kindness of heart, to which a miracle is 
not merely an evidence, nor rendered useless as soon 
as the power to work it is confessed. Jesus did not 
shrink from thus repeating Himself, even upon a lower 
level, because His object was not spectacular- but 
beneficent. He sought not to astonish but to bless. 

It is plain that Jesus strove to lead His disciples, 


Mark viii. 1-10.] THE FOUR THOUSAND. 297 
aware of the former miracle, up to the nction of its 
repetition. With this object He marshalled all the 
reasons why the people should be relieved. “I have 
compassion on the multitude, because they continue 
with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and 
if I send them away fasting to their home, they will 
faint in the way; and some of them are come from 
far.” Itis the grand argument from human necessity 
to the Divine compassion. It is an argument which 
ought to weigh equally with the Church. For if it is 
promised that “nothing shall be impossible” to faith 
and prayer, then the deadly wants of debauched cities, 
of ignorant and brutal peasantries, and of heathenisms 
festering in their corruptions—all these, by their very 
urgency, are vehement appeals instead of the dis- 
couragements we take them for. And whenever man 
is baffled and in need, there he is entitled to fall back 
upon the resources of the Omnipotent. 

It may be that the disciples had some glimmering 
hope, but they did not venture to suggest anything; 
they only asked, Whence shall one be able to fill these 
men with bread here in a desert place? It is the cry 
of unbelief—our cry, when we look at our resources, 
and declare our helplessness, and conclude that possibly 
God may interpose, but otherwise nothing can be done. 
We ought to be the priests of a famishing world (so 
ignorant of any relief, so miserable), its interpreters and 
intercessors, full of hope and energy. But we are 
content to look at our empty treasuries, and ineffective 
organizations, and to ask, Whence shall a man be able 
to fill these men with bread ? 

They have ascertained however what resources are 
forthcoming, and these He proceeds to use, first de- 
manding the faith which Ie will afterwards honour, 


208 GOSPEL OF S7. MARK. 








by bidding the multitudes to sit down. And then His 
loving heart is gratified by relieving the hunger which 
it pitied, and He promptly sends the multitude away, 
refreshed and competent for their journey. 


THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES. 


“And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with Him, 
seeking of Him a sign from heaven, tempting Ilim. And He sighed 
deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek a sign? 
verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. 
And He left them, and again entering into the dat departed to the 
other side. And they forgot to take bread ; and they had not in the 
boat with them more than one loaf. And He charged them, saying, 
Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of: 
Herod. And they reasoned one with another, saying, We have no 
bread. And Jesus perceiving it saith unto them, Why reason ye, because 
ye have no bread? do ye not yet perceive, neither understand ? have y~ 
your heart hardened ? Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, heai 
ye not? and do yenot remember? WhenI brake the five loaves among 
the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up? 
They said unto Him, Twelve. And when the seven among the four 
thousand, how many basketfu!s of broken pieces took ye up? And they 
said unto Him, Seven. And He said unto them, Do ye not yet under- 
stand ?”—MarkK viii. 11-21 (R.V.). 


WHENEVER a miracle produced a deep and special 
impression, the Pharisees strove to spoil its effect by 
some counter-demonstration. By so doing, and at least 
appearing to hold the field, since Jesus always yielded 
this to them, they encouraged their own faction, and 
shook the confidence of the feeble and hesitating 
multitude. At almost every crisis they might have 
been crushed by an appeal to the stormy passions of 
those whom the Lord had blessed. Once He might 
have been made a king. Again and again His enemies 
were conscious that an imprudent word would suffice 
to make the people stone them. But that would have 
spoiled the real work of Jesus more than to-retreat- 


Mark viii, 11-21.) 7#E LEAVEN OF THE PHARISELS. 20, 





before them, now across the lake, or, just before, 
into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Doubtless it was 
this constant avoidance of physical conflict, this habituai 
repression of the carnal zeal of His supporters, this 
refusal to form a party instead of founding a Church, 
which renewed incessantly the courage of His often- 
baffled foes, and led Him, by the path of steady cease- 
less self-depression, to the cross which He foresaw, 
even while maintaining His unearthly calm, amid the 
contradiction of sinners against Himself. 

Upon the feeding of the four thousand, they demand 
of Him a sign from heaven. He had wrought for the 
public no miracle of this peculiar kind. And yet 
Moses had gone up, in the sight of all Israel, to com- 
mune with God in the mount that burned ; Samuel had 
been answered by thunder and rain in the wheat 
harvest ; and Elijah had called down fire both upon his 
sacrifice and also upon two captains and their bands of 
fifty. Such a miracle was now declared to be the regular 
authentication of a messenger from God, and the only 
sign which evil spirits could not counterfeit. 

Moreover the demand would specially embarrass 
Jesus, because He alone was not accustomed to invoke 
heaven: His miracles were wrought by the exertion 
of His own will. And perhaps the challenge implied 
some understanding of what this peculiarity involved, 
such as Jesus charged them with, when putting into 
their mouth the words, This is the heir, come, let us 
kill Him. Certainly the demand ignored much. Con- 
ceding the fact of certain miracles, and yet imposing 
new conditions of belief, they shut their eyes to the 
unique nature of the works already wrought, the glory 
as of the Only-begotten of the Father which they 
displayed. They held that thunder and lightning re- )= 


14 


210 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


vealed God more certainly than supernatural victories 
‘or compassion, tenderness and love. What could be 

done for moral blindness such as this? How could 
A any sign be devised which unwilling hearts would not 
evade? No wonder that hearing this demand, Jesus 
sighed deeply in His spirit. It revealed their utter 
hardness; it was a snare by which others would be 
entangled; and for Himself it foretold the cross. 
. Mark simply tells us that He refused to give them 
any sign. In St. Matthew He justifies this decision 
by rebuking the moral blindness which demanded it. 
They had material enough for judgment. The face of 
the sky foretold storm and fair weather, and the pro- 
cess of nature could be anticipated without miracles to 
coerce belief. And thus they should have discerned 
the import of the prophecies, the course of history, 
the signs of the times in which they lived, so plainly 
radiant with Messianic promise, so menacing with 
storm-clouds of vengeance upon sin. The sign was 
refused moreover to an evil and adulterous generation, 
as God, in the Old Testament, would not be inquired — 


of at all by such a people as this. This indignant 
‘rejoinder St. Mark has compressed into the words, 


Tiere shell no Sign be Sie te ee 
—this which has proof enough, and which deserves 
none. Men there were to whom a sign from heaven 
was not refused. At His baptism, on the Mount of 
Transfiguration, and when the Voice answered His 
appeal, ‘‘ Father, glorify Thy name,” while the multitude 
said only that it thundered—at these times His chosen 
ones received a sign from heaven. But from those 
who had not was taken away even that which they 
seemed to have; and the sign of Jonah availed them not. 

Once more Jesus “left them” and crossed the lake. 







Mark viii. 11-21.] THE LEAVEN OF THE FHARISEES. 211 


The disciples found themselves with but one loaf, 
approaching a wilder district, where the ceremonial 
purity of food could not easily be ascertained. But 
they had already acted on the principle which Jesus 
had formally proclaimed, that all meats were clean. 
And therefore it was not too much to expect them to 
penetrate below the letter of the words, “ Take heed, 
heware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the leaven 
of Herod.” In giving them this enigma to discover, 
He acted according to His usage, wrapping the 
spiritual truth in earthly phrases, picturesque and 
impressive ; and He treated them as life treats every 
one of us, which keeps our responsibility still upon the 
strain, by presenting new moral problems, fresh ques- 
tions and trials of insight, for every added attainment 
which lays our old tasks aside. But they understood 
Him not. Some new ceremonial appeared to them to 
be designed, in which everything would be reversed, 
and the unclean should be those hypocrites, the 
strictest observers of the old code. Such a mistake, 
however blameworthy, reveals the profound sense 
of an ever-widening chasm, and an expectation of 
a final and hopeless rupture with the chiefs of their 
religion. It prepares us for what is soon to come, the 
contrast between the popular belief and theirs, and the 
selection of a rock on which a new Church is to be 
built. In the meantime the dire practical inconveni- 
ence of this announcement led to hot discussion, be- 
cause they had no bread. And Jesus, perceiving this, 
remonstrated in a series of indignant questions. Per- 
sonal want should not have disturbed their judgment, 
remembering that twice over He had fed hungry 
multitudes, and loaded them with the surplus of His 
gift. Their eyes and ears should have taught them 





212 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


that He was indifferent to such distinctions, and His 
doctrine could never result in a new Judaism. How 
was it that they did not understand ? 

Thereupon they perceived that His warning was 
figurative. He had spoken to them, after feeding the 
five thousand, of spiritual bread which He would give, 
even His flesh to be their food. What then could He 
have meant by the leaven of the Pharisees but the 
imparting of ‘heir religious tendencies, their teaching, 
and their insincerity ? 

Was there any real danger that these, His chosen 
ones, should be shaken by the demand for a sign from 
heaven ? Did not Philip presently, when Christ spoke 
of seeing the Father, eagerly cry out that this, if it 
were granted, would suffice them ? In these words he 
confessed the misgiving which haunted their minds, and 
the roneing for 3 heavenly Sen. hat ee 
the vision’ of God was in_the-life_and_ seo 
they had failed to kno could not im 
in on ee eS ee 

We too require the same caution. When we long 

for miracles, neglecting those standing miracles of our 
faith, the gospel and the Church: when our reason is 
satisfied of a doctrine or a duty, and yet we remain 
irresolute, sighing for the impulse of some rare spiritual 
enlightenment or excitement, for a revival, or a mission, 
or an oration to lift us above ourselves, we are virtu- 
\ ally asking to be shown what we already confess, to 
hold a sign, while we possess the evidence. 
And the only wisdom of the languid, irresolute will, 
which postpones action in hope that feeling may be 
deepened, is to pray. It is by the effort of communion 
with the unfelt, but confessed Reality above us, that 
healthy feeling is to be recovered, 


Mark viii. 22-26.] MEN AS TREES. 213 





MEN AS TREES. 


*¢ And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to Him a blind 
man, and beseech Him to touch him. And He took hold of the blind 
man by the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when He 
had spit on his eyes, and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, 
Seest thou aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I 
behold zhzm as trees, walking. Then again He laid His hands upon 
his eyes; and he looked stedfas:ly, and was restored, and saw all 
things clearly. And He sent him away to his home, saying, Do not 
even enter into the village.”—-MarkK viii. 22-26 (R.V.). 


WHEN the disciples arrived at Bethsaida, they were met 
by the friends of a blind man, who besought Him to 
touch him, And this gave occasion to the most remark- 
able by far of all the progressive and tentative miracles, 
in which means were employed, and the result was 
gradually reached. The reasons for advancing to this 
cure by progressive stages have been much discussed. 
St. Chrysostom and many others have conjectured that 
the blind man had but little faith, since he neither 
found his own way to Jesus, nor pleaded his own 
cause, like Bartimzeus. Others brought him, and 
interceded for him. This may be so, but since he was 
clearly a consenting party, we can infer little from 
details which constitutional timidity would explain, or 
helplessness (for the resources of the blind are very 
various), or the zeal of friends or of paid servants, or 
the mere eagerness of a crowd, pushing him forward 
in desire to see a marvel. 

We cannot expect always to penetrate the motives 
which varied our Saviour’s mode of action; it is 
enough that we can pretty clearly discern some prin- 
ciples which led to their variety. Many of them, 
including all the greatest, were wrought without 
instrumentality and withovt delay, showing His un- 


214 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





restricted and underived power. Others were gradual, 
and wrought by means. These connected His “signs” 
with nature and the God of nature ; and they could 
be so watched as to silence many a cavil; and they 
exhibited, by the very disproportion of the means, the 
grandeur of the Worker. In this respect the successive 
stages of a miracle were like the subdivisions by which 
a skilful architect increases the effect of a fac¢ade or 
an interior. In every case the means employed were 
such as to connect the result most intimately with the 
person as well as the will of Christ. 

It must be repeated also, that the need of secondary 
agents shows itself, only as the increasing wilfulness of 
Israel separates between Christ and the people. It is 
as if the first rush of generous and spontaneous power 
had been frozen by the chill of their ingratitude. 

Jesus again, as when healing the deaf and dumb, 
withdraws from idle curiosity. And we read, what is 
very impressive when we remember that any of the 
disciples could have been bidden to lead the blind man, 
that Jesus Himself drew Him by the hand out of the 
village. What would have been affectation in other 
cases was a graceful courtesy to the blind. And it re- 
veals to us the hearty human benignity and condescension 
of Him Whom to see was to see the Father, that He 
should have clasped in His helpful hand the hand of a 
blind suppliant for His grace. Moistening his eyes 
from His own lips, and laying His hands upon him, so 
as to convey the utmost assurance of power actually 
exerted, He asked, Seest thou aught ? 

The answer is very striking: it is such as the know- 
ledge of that day could scarcely have imagined; and 
yet it is in the closest accord with later scientific 
discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a 


Mark viii. 22-26.] MEN AS TREES. 215 





two-fold process ; there is in it the report of the nerves 
to the brain, and also an inference, drawn by the mind, 
which previous experience has educated to understand 
what that report implies. For want of such experience, 
an infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and 
reaches out for it. And when Christian science does 
its Master’s work by opening the eyes of men who 
have been born blind, they do not know at first what 
appearances belong to globes and what to flat and 
square objects. It is certain that every image conveyed 
to the brain reaches it upside down, and is corrected 
there. When Jesus then restored a blind man to the 
perfect enjoyment of effective intelligent vision, He 
wrought a double miracle; one which instructed the 
intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his 
eyes. This was utterly unknown to that age. But the 
scepticism of our century would complain that to open 
the eyes was not enough, and that such a miracle 
would have left the man perplexed; and it would refuse to 
accept narratives whichtook noaccount of this difficulty, 
but that the cavil is anticipated. The miracle now be- 
fore us refutes it in advance, for it recognises, what no 
spectator and no early reader of the marvel could have 
understood, the middle stage, when sight is gained but 
is still uncomprehended and ineffective. The process 
is shown as well as the completed work. Only by their 
motion could he at first distinguish living creatures 
from lifeless things of far greater bulk. ‘‘ He looked 
up,” (mark this picturesque detail,) “and said, I see 
men ; for I behold them as trees, walking.” 

But Jesus leaves no unfinished work: “ Then again 
laid He His hands upon his eyes, and he looked sted- 
lastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly.” 

In this narrative there is a deep significance. That 


216 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





vision, forfeited until grace restores it, by which we 
look at the things which are not seen, is not always 
quite restored at once. We are conscious of great per- 
plexity, obscurity and confusion. But a reel work o7 
Christ may have begun amid much that is imperfect, 
much that is even erroneous. And the path of the just 
is often a haze and twilight at the first, yet is its light 
real, and one that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day. 


THE CONFESSION AND THE WARNING. 


“And Jesus went forth, and His disciples, into the villages of 
Ceesarea Philippi: and in the way He asked His disciples, saying unto 
them, Who do men say that lam? And they told Him, saying, John 
the Baptist: and others, Elijah; but others, One of the prophets. 
And He asked them, But Who say ye that I am? Peter answereth 
and saith unto Him, Thou art the Christ. And He charged them that 
they should tell no man of Him. And He began to teach them, that 
the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders. 
and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days 
rise again. And He spake the saying openly.”—MarK viii. 27-32 
(R.V.). 


We have now reached an important stage in the 
Gospel narrative, the comparative withdrawal from 
evangelistic effort, and the preparation of the disciples 
for an approaching tragedy. We find them in the 
wild country to the north of the Lake of Galilee, and 
even as far withdrawn as to the neighbourhood of the 
sources of the Jordan. Not without a deliberate in- 
tention has Jesus led them thither. He wishes them 
to realise their separation. He will fix upon their 
‘onsciousness the failure of the world to comprehend 
‘lim, and give them the opportunity either to acknow- 
ledge Him, or sink back to the lower level of the crowd 

Tais is what interests St. Mark; and it is worthy of 


Mark viii. 27-32.] CONFESSION AND WARNING. 217 
notice that he, the friend of Peter, mentions not the 
special honour bestowed upon him by Christ, nor the 
first utterance of the memorable words ‘‘ My Church.” 
“Who do men say that Iam?” Jesus asked. The 
answer would tell of acceptance or rejection, the 
success or failure of His ministry, regarded in itself, 
and apart from ultimate issues unknown to mortals. 
From this point of view it had very plainly failed. At 
the beginning there was a clear hope that this was 
He that should come, the Son of David, the Holy One 
of God. But now the pitch of men’s expectation was 
lowered. Some said, John the Baptist, risen from the 
dead, as Herod feared; others spoke of Elijah, who 
was to come before the great and notable day of the 
Lord; in the sadness of His later days some had 
begun to see a resemblance to Jeremiah, lamenting the 
ruin of his nation ; and others fancied a resemblance to 
various of the prophets. Beyond this the apostles con- 
fessed that men were not known to go. Their enthusi- 
asm had cooled, almost as rapidly as in the triumphal 
procession, where they who blessed both Him, and 
_“the kingdom that cometh,” no sooner felt the chill 
of contact with the priestly faction, than their con- 
fession dwindled into ‘‘ This is Jesus, the prophet of 
Nazareth.” ‘But Who say ye that I am?” He 
added ; and it depended on the answer whether or not 
there should prove to be any solid foundation, any 
rock, on which to build His Church. Much difference, 
much error may be tolerated there, but on one subject 
there must be no hesitation. To make Him only a 
prophet among others, to honour Him even as the first 
among the teachers of mankind, is to empty His life 
of its meaning, His death of its efficacy, and His 
Church of its authority. And yet the danger was real, 


218 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


_ 





as we may see by the fervent blessing (unrecorded in 
our Gospel) which the right answer won. For it was 
no longer the bright morning of His career, when all 
bare Him witness and wondered; the noon was over 
now, and the evening shadows were heavy and lower- 
ing. To confess Him then was to have learned what 
Ylesh and blood could not reveal. 

But Peter did not hesitate. In answer to the 
question, ‘‘Who say ye? Is your judgment like the 
the world’s?” He does not reply, ‘‘We believe, we 
say,” but with all the vigour of 2 mind at rest, “ Thou 
art the Christ;” that is not even a subject of discus- 
sion: the fact is so. 

Here one pauses to admire the spirit of the disciples, 
so unjustly treated in popular exposition because they 
were but human, because there were dangers which 
could appal them, and because the course of providence 
was designed to teach them how weak is the loftiest 
human virtue. Nevertheless, they could part company 
with all they had been taught to reverence and with 
the unanimous opinion of their native land, they could 
watch the slow fading out of public enthusiasm, and 
continue faithful, because they knew and revered the 
Divine life, and the glory which was hidden from the 
wise and prudent. 

The confession of Peter is variously stated in the 
Gospels. St. Matthew wrote for Jews, familiar with 
the notion of a merely human Christ, and St. Luke 
for mixed Churches. Therefore the first Gospel gives 
the explicit avowal not only of Messiahship, but of 
divinity ; and the third Gospel implies this. ‘ Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God”—* the 
Christ of God.” But St. Mark wrote for Gentiles, 
whose first and only notion of the Messiah was derived 


Merk viii. 27-32.] CONFESSION AND WARNING. 219 





from Christian sources, and steeped in Christian attri- 
butes, so that, for their intelligence, all the great avowal 
was implied in the title itself, Thou art the Christ. Yet 
it is instructive to see men insisting on the difference, 
and even exaggerating it, who know that this Gospel 
opens with an assertion of the Divine sonship of Jesus, 
and whose theory is that its author worked with the 
Gospel of St. Matthew before his eyes. How then, 
or why, do they suppose the confession to have been 
weakened ? 

This foundation of His Church being secured, His 
Divine Messiahship being confessed in the face of an 
unbelieving world, Jesus lost no time in leading His 
apostles forward. They-were forbidden to tell any 
man of Him: the vain hope was to be absolutely 
suppressed of winning the people to confess their king. 
The effort would only make it harder for themselves 
to accept that stern truth which they were now to 
learn, that His matchless royalty was to be won by 
matchless suffering. Never hitherto had Jesus pro- 
claimed this truth, as He now did, in so many words. 
It had been, indeed, the secret spring of many of His 
sayings ; and we ought to mark what loving ingenuity 
was lavished upon the task of gradually preparing 
them for the dread shock of this announcement. The 
Bridegroom was to be taken away from them, and 
then they should fast. The temple of His body should 
be destroyed, and in three days reared again. The 
blood of all the slaughtered prophets was to come 
upon this generation. It should suffice them when 
persecuted unto death, that the disciple was as His 
Master. It was still a plainer intimation when He 
said, that to follow Him was to take up across. His 
flesh was promised to them for meat and His blood 


220 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 

for drink. (Chap. ii. 20; John ii. 19; Luke xi. 50; 
Matt. x. 21, 25; 38; John vi. 54.) Such intima- 
tions Jesus had already given them, and doubt- 
Jess many a cold shadow, many a dire misgiving 
had crept over their sunny hopes. But these it had 
been possible to explain away, and the effort, the 
attitude of mental antagonism thus forced upon them, 
would make the grief more bitter, the gloom more 
deadly, when Jesus spoke openly the saying, thence- 
forth so frequently repeated, that He must suffer 
keenly, be rejected formally by the chiefs of His 
creed and nation, and be killed. When He recurs 
to the subject (ix. 31), He adds the horror of being 
“delivered into the hands of men.” In the tenth 
chapter we find Him setting His face toward the city 
outside which a prophet could not perish, with such 
fixed purpose and awful consecration in His bearing 
that His followers were amazed and afraid. And 
then He reveals the complicity of the Gentiles, who 
shall mock and spit upon and scourge and kill Him. 

But in every case, without exception, He announced 
that on the third day He should arise again. For 
neither was He Himself sustained by a sullen and 
stoical submission to the worst, nor did He seek so 
to instruct His followers. It was for the joy that was 
set before Him that He endured the cross. And all 
the faithful who suffer with Him shall also reign 
together with Him, and are instructed to press 
toward the mark for the prize of their high calling. 
For we are saved by hope. 

But now, contrast with the utmost courage of the 
martyrs, who braved the worst, when it emerged at 
the last suddenly from the veil which mercifully hides 
our future, and which hope can always gild with 


Mark viii. 32-ix.1.] ZHZ REBGUKE OF PETER. 221 


Nee ee ee 





starry pictures, this courage that looked steadily 
forward, disguising nothing, hoping for no escape, 
living through all the agony so long before it came, 
seeing His wounds in the breaking of bread, and His 
blood when wine was poured. Consider how marvel- 
lous was the love, which met with no real sympathy, 
nor even comprehension, as He spoke such dreadful 
words, and forced Himself to repeat what must have 
shaken the barb He carried in His heart, that by- 
and-by His followers might be somewhat helped by 
remembering that He had told them. 

And yet again, consider how immediately the doctrine 
of His suffering follows upon the confession of His 
Christnood, and: judge whether the crucifixion was 
merely a painful incident, the sad close of a noble 
life and a pure ministry, or in itself a necessary and 
cardinal event, fraught with transcendent issues. 


THE REBUKE OF PETER. 


“And He spake the saying openly. And Peter took Him, and 
began to rebuke Ilim.”... ‘‘ And He said unto them, Verily I say unto 
you, There be some here of them that stand by, which shall in no 
wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with 
power. ’—Mark viii. 32-ix. 1 (R.V.). 

Tue doctrine of a suffering Messiah was strange in the 
time of Jesus. And to the warm-hearted apostle the 
announcement that his beloved Master should endure a 
shameful death was keenly painful. Moreover, what 
had just passed made it specially unwelcome then. 
Jesus had accepted and applauded a confession which 
implied all honour. He had promised to build a new 
Church upon a rock ; and claimed, as His to give away, 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Hopes were thus 
excited which could not brook His stern repression ; 


822 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, , 


and the career which the apostle promised himself 
was very unlike that defence of a lost cause, and a 
persecuted and martyred leader, which now threatened 
him. The rebuke of Jesus clearly warns Peter, that he 
had miscalculated his own prospect as well as that of 
his Lord, and that he must prepare for the burden of a 
cross. Above all, it is plain that Peter was intoxicated 
by the great position just assigned to him, and allowed 
himself an utterly strange freedom of interference with 
his Master’s plans. He “took Him and began to 
rebuke Him,” evidently drawing Him aside for the 
purpose, since Jesus “turned about” in order to see 
the disciples whom He had just addressed. Thus our 
nasrative implies that commission of the keys to him 
which it omits to mention, and we learn how absurd is 
the infidel contention that each evangelist was ignorant 
of all that he did not record. Did the appeal against 
those gloomy forebodings of Jesus, the protest that 
such evil must not be, the refusal to recognise a 
prophecy in His fears, awaken any answer in the 
sinless heart ? Sympathy was not there, nor approval, 
nor any shade of readiness to yield. But innocent 
human desire for escape, the love of life, horror of His 
fate, more intense as it vibrated in the apostle’s shaken 
voice, these He assuredly felt. For He tells us in so 
many words that Peter was a stumbling-block to Him, 
although He, walking in the clear day, stumbled not. 
Jesus, let us repeat it again and again, endured not 
like a Stoic, deadening the natural impulses of humanity. 
Whatever outraged His tender and perfect nature was 
not less dreadful to Him than to us; it was much more 
so, because His sensibilities were unblunted and ex- 
quisitely strung. At every thought of what lay before 
Him, his soul shuddered like a rudely touched instru- 


Mark viii. 32-ix.1.] ZTHE REBUKE OF PETER. 223 
ment of most delicate structure. And it was necessary 
that He should throw back the temptation with indig- 
nation and even vehemence, with the rebuke of heaven 
set against the presumptuous rebuke of flesh, “Get 
thee behind Me. . . . for thou art mindful not of the 
things of God, but the things of men.” 

But what shall we say to the hard word, “Satan” ? 
Assuredly Peter, who remained faithful to Him, did 
not take it for an outbreak of bitterness, an exaggerated 
epithet of unbridled and undisciplined resentment. 
The very time occupied in looking around, the “ circum- 
spection” which was shown, while it gaye emphasis, 
removed passion from the saying. 

Peter would therefore understand that Jesus heard, 
in his voice, the prompting of the great tempter, to 
whom He had once already spoken the same words. 
He would be warned that soft and indulgent sentiment, 
while seeming kind, may become the very snare of 
the destroyer. 

And the strong word which sobered him will 
continue to be a warning to the end of time. 

When love of ease or worldly prospects would lead 
us to discourage the self-devotion, and repress the 
zeal of any convert; when toil or liberality beyond the 
recognised level seems a thing to discountenance, not 
because it is perhaps misguided, but only because it is 
exceptional ; when, for a brother or ason, we are tempted 
to prefer an easy and prosperous life rather than a 
fruitful but stern and even perilous course, then we are 
in the same danger as Peter of becoming the mouth- 
piece of the Evil One. 

Danger and hardness are not to be chosen for their 
own sake; but to reject a noble vocation, because these 
are in the way, is to mind not the things of God but the 


224 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





things of men. And yet the temptation is one from 
which men are never free, and which intrudes into 
what seems most holy. It dared to assail Jesus ; and it 
is most perilous still, because it often speaks to us, as 
then to Him, through compassionate and loving lips. 

But now the Lord calls to Himself al! the multitude, 
and lays down the rule by which discipleship must to 
the end be regulated. 

The inflexible law is, that every follower of Jesus 
must deny himself and take up his cross. It is not 
said, Let him devise some harsh and ingenious instru- 
ment of self-torture : wanton self-torture is cruelty, and 
is often due to the soul’s readiness rather to endure 
any other suffering than that which God assigns. Nor 
is it said, J.et him take up My cross, for the burden 
Christ bore devolves upon no other: the fight He 
fought is over. 

But it speaks of some cross allotted, known, but not 
yet accepted, some lowly form of suffering, passive or 
active, against which nature pleads, as Jesus heard 
His own nature pleading when Peter spoke. In taking 
up this cross we must deny self, for it will refuse the 
dreadful burden. What it is, no man can tell his 
neighbour, for often what seems a fatal besetment is 
but a symptom and not the true disease; and the 
angry man’s irritability, and the drunkard’s resort to 
stimulants, are due to remorse and self-reproach for a 
dceper-hidden evil gnawing the spiritual lifeaway. But 
the man himself knows it. Our exhortations miss the 
mark when we bid him reform in this direction or in 
that, but conscience does not err; and he well dis- 
cerns the effort or the renouncement, hateful to him 
as the very cross itself, by which alone he can enter 
into life. 


Mark viii 32-ix.1.] ZHE REBUKE OF PETER. 225 

To him, that life seems death, the death of all for 
whiclt. he cares to live, being indeed the death of 
selfishness. But from the beginning, when God in 
Eden set a barrier against lawless appetite, it was 
announced that the seeming life of self-indulgence 
and of disobedience was really death. In the day 
when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit he surely died. 
And thus our Lord declared that whosoever is resolved 
to save his life—the life of wayward, isolated selfish- 
ness—he shall lose all its reality, the sap, the sweetness, 
and the glow of it. And whosoever is content to lose 
all this for the sake of the Great Cause, the cause of 
Jesus and His gospel, he shall save it. 

It was thus that the great apostle was crucified with 
Christ, yet lived, and yet no longer he, for Christ 
Himself inspired in his breast a nobler and deeper 
life than that which he had lost, for Jesus and the 
gospel. The world knows, as the Church does, how 
much superior is self-devotion to self-indulgence, and 
that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age 
without a name. Its imagination is not inflamed by 
the picture of indolence and luxury, but by resolute _ 
and victorious effort. But it knows not how to master 
the rebellious senses, nor how to insure victory in the 
struggle, nor how to bestow upon the masses, plunged 
in their monotonous toils, the rapture of triumphant 
strife. That can only be done by revealing to them 
the spiritual responsibilities of life, and the beauty of 
Ilis love Who calls the humblest to walk in His own 
sacred footsteps. 

Very striking is the moderation of Jesus, Who does 
not refuse discipleship to seli-seeking wishes but only 
to the self-seeking will, in which wishes have ripened 
into choice, nor does He demand that we shculd wel- 


15 


226 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





come the loss of the inferior life, but only that we 
should accept it. He can be touched with the feeling 
of our infirmities. 

And striking also is this, that He condemns not the 
vicious life only: not alone the man whose desires are 
sensual and depraved; but all who live for self. No 
matter how refined and artistic the personal ambitions 
be, to devote ourselves to them is to lose the reality 
of life, it is to become querulous or jealous or vain or 
forgetful of the claims of other men, or scornful of the 
crowd. Not self-culture but self-sacrifice is the voca- 
tion of the child of God. 

Many people speak as if this text bade us sacrifice 
the present life in hope of gaining another life beyond 
the grave. That is apparently the common notion of 
saving our “souls,” But Jesus used one word for the 
“life” renounced and gained. He spoke indeed of 
saving it unto life eternal, but His hearers were men 
who trusted that they had eternal life, not that it was 
a far-off aspiration (John vi. 47, 54). 

And it is doubtless in the same sense, thinking of 
the freshness and joy which we sacrifice for worldliness, 

-and how sadly and soon we are disillusionised, that He 
went on to ask, What shall it profit a man to gain the 
whole world and forfeit His life? Or with what price 
shall he buy it back when he discovers his error ? 
But that discovery is too often postponed beyond the 
horizon of mortality. As one desire proves futile, 
another catches the eye, and somewhat excites again 
the often baffled hope. But the day shall come when 
the last self-deception shall be at anend. The cross 
of the Son of man, that type of all noble sacrifice, shall 
then be replaced by the glory of His Father with the 
holy angels; and ignoble compromise, aware of Jesus 


Mark vili. 32-ix.1.] ZHE REBUKE OF PETER. 227ae 


and His words, yet ashamed of them in a vicious and 
self-indulgent age, shall in turn endure His averted face. 
What price shall they offer then, to buy back what 
they have forfeited ? 

Men who were standing there should see the begin- 
ning of the end, the approach of the kingdom of God 
with power, in the fall of Jerusalem, and the removal 
of the Hebrew candlestick out of its place. 


CHAPTER IX. 
THE TRANSFIGURATION. 


® And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, aud 
John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves : 
and He was transfigured before them: and His garments became 
glistering, exceeding white: so as no fuller on earth can whiten them, 
And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and they were 
talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and saith to Jesus, Rabbi, it 
is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles ; one for 
Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For He wist not what 
to answer; for they became sore afraid. And there came a cloud 
overshadowing them: and there came a voice out of the cloud, This is 
My beloved Son: hear ye Him. And suddenly looking round about, 
they saw no one any more, save Jesus only with themselyes.”— 
Mark ix. 2-8 (R.V.). 


HE Transfiguration is an event without a parallel 

in all the story of our Lord. This breaking forth 
of unearthly splendour in a life of self-negation, this 
miracle wrought without suffering to be relieved or 
want supplied, and in which He seems to be not the 
Giver of Help but the Receiver of Glory, arrests our 
attention less by the greatness of the marvel than by 
its loneliness. 

But if myth or legend had to do with the making of 
our Gospels, we should have had wonders enough 
which bless no suppliant, but only crown the sacred 
head with laurels. They are as plentiful in the false 
Gospels as in the later stories of Mahomed or Gautama. 
Can we find a sufficient difference between these 


Mark ix. 2-8.] THE TRANSFIGURATICN. 229 


romantic tales and this memorable event—causes 
enough to lead up to it, and ends enough for it to 
serve ? 

An answer is hinted by the stress Jaid in all three 
narratives upon the date of the Transfiguration. It 


was “after six days” according to the first two. 


__St. Luke-reckons.the-broken_portions of the first day | 
_and the last, 2d makes it “about eight days. after. 
these sayings.” A week has passed since the solemn 
announcement that their Lord was journeying to a 
“cruel death, that self pity was discordant with the 


things of God, that all His. followers must in_ spirit ; 
endure the cross, that life was to be won by losing it. _ 


Of_that week no action-is_recorded, and we may well 
believe that it-was spent in profound searchings ot 
~_heart..The thief Iscariot would more than ever be 
estranged. The rest would aspire and struggle and 
recoil, and explain away His words in such strange 
ways, as when they presently failed to understand what 
the rising again from the dead should mean (ver. 10). 
But in the deep heart of Jesus there was peace, the 
same which He bequeathed to all His followers, the 
perfect calm of an absolutely surrendered _will. He 
had made the dread announcement and rejected the 


in his inner Pie and the word spoken, Lo, I come to do 
Thy will, O Go God. wore ust steadily resist the notion 
that the Transfiguration was required to confirm His 
consecration ; or, after six days had passed since He 
bade Satan get behind Him, to complete and perfect 
His decision. Yet doubtless it had its meaning for 
Him also. | Such times of more than heroic self-devo- 
tion make “large demands upon the vital energies. 
And He whom t the argels more than once sustained, 





230 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





now sought refreshment in the pure air and solemn 
silence of the hills, and above all in communion with His His 
Father, since we read in St. Luke that He went_up_ 
to pray. Who shall say how far-reaching, how all- 
embracing such a prayer would be? What age, what 
race may not hope to have shared its intercessions, 
remembering how He once expressly prayed not for 
His immediate followers alone. But we need not 
doubt that now, as in the Garden, He prayed also for 
Himself, and for support in the ‘approaching death- 
‘struggle. And the Twelve, so keenly tried, would be 
especially remembered in this season. And even 
among these there would be distinctions ; for we know 
His manner, we remember that when Satan claimed 
to have them all, Jesus prayed especially for Peter, 
because his conversion would strengthen his brethren. 
Now this principle of benefit to all through the selection 
of the fittest, explains why three were chosen to be 
the eye-witnesses of His glory. If the others had been 
there, perhaps they would have been led away into 
millennarian day-dreams. Perhaps the worldly aspira- 
tions of Judas, thus inflamed, would have spread far. 
Perhaps they would have murmured against that return 
to common life, which St. Peter was so anxious to 
postpone. Perhaps even the chosen three were 2 only 
saved from intoxicating and delusive hopes by the 
sobering knowledge that what they had seen was to 
remain a secret until some intervening and mysterious 
event. The unripeness of the others for special reve- 
lations was abundantly shown, on the morrow, by their 
failure to cast out a devil. It was enough that their 
leaders should have this grand confirmation of their 
faith, There was_among them, henceforth, a_secret 
fountain of encouragement and trust, amid ‘the darkest. 


Mark ix. 2-8.] THE TRANSFIGURATION. 231 


circumstances, The panic in which all forsook Him 
might have been final, but for this vision of His glory. 
For it is noteworthy that these three are the foremost 
afterwards in sincere though frail devotion : one offering 
to die with Him, and the others desiring to drink of 
His cup and to be baptized with His baptism. 

While Jesus prays for them, He is Himself made 
the source of their revival. He had lately promised 
that they who willed to lose their life should find it 
unto life eternal. And now, in Him who had perfectly 
so willed, they beheld the eternal glory beaming forth, 
_ until His very garments were steeped in light. There 
is no need of proof that the spirit has power over the 
body ; the question is only of degree. Vile passions 
can permanently degrade human comeliness. And there 
is a beauty beyond that of line or colour, seen in vivid 
hours of emotion, on the features of a mother beside 
her sleeping babe, of an orator when his soul burns 
within him, of a martyr when his face is as the face of 
an angel, and often making fairer than youthful bloom 
the old age that has suffered long and been kind. 
These help us, however faintly, to believe that there is 
a spiritual body, and that we may yet bear the image 
of the heavenly. And so once, if only once, it is given 
to sinful men to see how a perfect spirit can illuminate 
its fleshly tabernacle, as a flame illuminates a lamp, 
and what the life is like in which self-crucifixion 
issues, “In this hour of rapt devotion His ‘body was) 


‘steeped:i in the splendour which was natural to holiness, 





~ and which would never have grown dim but that the) ? 


great sacrifice had still to be carried out in action. _ 


We shall best think of the glories of transfiguration 


not as poured over Jesus, but as at Tevelation from_ 
within.\ Moreover, while they gaze, the conquering | 
. aD, 





232 GOSFEL OF ST, MARK. 





chiefs of the Old Testament approach the Man of 
Sorrows. Because the spirit of the hour is that of 
self-devotion, they see not Abraham, the prosperous 
friend of God, nor Isaiah whose burning words befit 
the lips that were touched by fire from an unearthly 
altar, but the heroic law-giver and the lion-hearted pro-_ 
phet, the typical champions of the ancient dispensation. _ 
Elijah had not seen death; a majestic obscurity veiled 
the ashes of Moses from excess of honour; yet these 
were not offended by the cross which tried so cruelly 
the faith of the apostles. They spoke of His decease, 
and their word seems to have lingered in the narrative 
as strangely appropriate to one of the speakers ; it is” 
Christ’s “ exodus.” * 

But St. Mark does not linger over this detail, nor 
mention the drowsiness with which they struggled ; he 
leans all the weight of his vivid narrative upon one 
great fact, the evidence now given of our Lord’s abso- 

_ lute supremacy. 

For, at this juncture Peter interposed. He “an- 
swered,” a phrase which points to his consciousness that 
he was no unconcerned bystander, that the_vision was _ 
in some degree addressed to him.and his companions. 
But he answers at random, and like a man distro 
“Lord, it is good for us to be here,” as if it were not 
always good to be where Jesus led, even though men 
should bear accross to follow Him. Intoxicated by the 
joy of seeing the King in His beauty, and doubtless by 
the revulsion of new hope in the stead of his dolorous 
forebodings, he proposes to linger there. He will have 





* Once besides in the New Testament this phrase was applied to 
death. That was by St. Peter speaking of his own, when the thought 
of the transfiguration was floating in his mind, and its voices lingered 
unconsciously in his memory (2 Pet. i. 15, cf ver. 17). The phrase, 
though not unclassical, is not common. 


Mark ix. 2-8.] THE TRANSFIGURATION. 


more than is granted, just as, when Jesus wasi.ca 
feet, he said “not my Ge cule but also my_ hand. 
and my head.” And if this might be, it was fitting that: 
these superhumam personages should have tabernacles 
made for them. No doubt the assertion that he wist 
not what to say, bears specially upon this strange offer 
to shelter glorified bodies from the night air, and to 
provide for each a place of separate reposex, The 
words are incoherent, but they are quite natural from 
one who has so impulsively begun to speak that now 
he must talk on, because he knows not_how to _stop./ 
They are the Gores of the very Peter whose actions w 
know so well. As he formerly walked upon the sea, 
before considering how boisterous were the waves, and 
would soon afterwards smite with the sword, and risk 
himself in the High Priest’s palace, without seeing his 
way through either adventure, exactly so in this bd- 
wildering presence he ventures into a sentence without 
knowing how to close it. i 
Now this perfect accuracy of character, so oat le 
and yet so unaffected, is evidence of the truth of 
great miracle. To a frank student who knows humth 
nature, it is a very admirable evidence. To one whjo 
knows how clumsily such effects are produced by alll 
but the greatest masters of creative literature, it js 
almost decisive. Q 
In speaking thus, he has lowered his Master to ¢ he 
level of the others, unconscious that Moses and_Elija 
were only attendants upon Jesus, who have come fro 
heaven because He is upon earth, and who speak ne 
of their achievements but of His sufferings, deere 
knew it, the hour had struck when their work, the law of 
Moses and the utterances of the prophets whom Kijjah 
represented, should cease to be the chief impulse in 


GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





,.on, and without being destroyed, should be 
4ed,"sand absorbed in a new system. He was there 
to whom Moses in the law, and the prophets bore 
witness, and in His presence they had no glory by 
reason of the glory that excelleth. Yet Peter would 
fain build equal tabernacles for all alike. 
Now St. Luke tells us that he interposed just when 


they were departing, and apparently in the hope of 


staying them, But all the narratives convey a strong 
impression that his words hastened their disappear- 


ance, and decided the manner of it. For while he yet — 


" spake; as if all the vision were eclipsed on being thus 
misunderstood, a cloud swept over the three—bright, 
yet overshadowing them—and the voice of God pro- 
claimed their Lord to be His beloved Son (not faithful 

-only,_ like Moses, as a steward over the house), and > 

ade them, instead of of desiring to arrest ‘the > flight of — 

rival teachers, hear Him. 

Too often Christian souls err after the same fashion. 
We cling to authoritative teachers, familiar ordinances, 
| ud traditional views, good it may be, and even divinely 
given, as if they were not intended wholly to lead us 
ap to Christ. And in many a spiritual eclipse, from 

any a cloud which the heart fears to enter, the great 

‘son resounds through the conscience of the believer, 

car Him! 

Did the words dininih Peter how he had lately begun 
*1reluke his Lord? Did the visible glory, the minis- 

.ation of blessed spirits and the voice of God, teach 
sim henceforth to hear and to submit? Alas, he could 
again contradict Jesus, and say Thou shalt never wash 
my feet. I never will deny Thee. And we, who 
woncer and blame him, as easily forget what we are 
taught, 


al Ae y 
7 * 


“Mark ix.9-13] DESCENT FROM THE MOUNT. 235 





Let it be observed that the miraculous and Divine 
Voice reveals nothing new to them. For the words, 
This is My beloved Son, and also their drift in raising 
confession of this very Peter that He was neither 
Elijah nor one of the. prophets, but the Son of the 
Living God. So true is it that we may receive a truth 
‘into our creed, and even apprehend it with such vital 
faith as makes us “blessed,” long before it grasps and 
subdues our nature, and saturates the obscure regions 
where impulse and excitement are controlled. What 
we all need most is not clearer and sounder views, but 
the bringing of our thoughts into subjection to the 
mind of Jesus. 


THE DESCENT FROM THE MOUNT. 


** And as they were coming down from the mountain, He charged 
them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, save 
when the Son of man should have risen again from the dead. And they 
kept the saying, questioning among themselves what the rising again 
from the dead should mean. And they asked Him, saying, The scribes 
say that Elijah must first come. And He said unto them, Elijah indeed 
cometh first, and restoreth all things : and how is it written of the Son 
of man, that He should suffer many things and be set at nought? But I 
say unto you, that Elijah is come, and they have also done unto him 
whatsoever they listed, even as it is written of Him.”—Mark ix, 9-13 


(R.V.). 3 

In what state of mind did the apostles return from be- 
holding the glory of the Lord, and His ministers from 
another world? They seem to have been excited, de- 
monstrative, ready to blaze abroad the wonderful event 
which ought to put an end to all men’s doubts. 

They would have been bitterly disappointed, if they 
had prematurely exposed their experience to ridicule, 
cross-examination, conjectural theories, and all the con- 
troversy which reduces facts to logical form, but strips 


236 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
them of their freshness and vitality. In the first age 
as in the nineteenth, it was possible to be witnesses 
for the Lord without exposing to coarse and irreverent 
handling all the delicate and secret experiences of the 
soul with Christ. 

Therefore Jesus charged them that they should tell no 
man, Silence would force back the impression upon 
the depths of their own spirits, and spread its roots 
under the surface there. 

Nor was it right to make such a startling demand 
‘upon the faith of others before public evidence had been 


given, enough to make scepticism blameworthy. His © 


resurrection from the dead would suffice to unseal their 
lips. And the experience of all the Church has justi- 
fied that decision. The resurrection is, in fact, the 
centre of all the miraculous narratives, the sun which 
keeps them in their orbit. Some of them, as isolated 
events, might have failed to challenge credence. But 
authority and sanction are given to all the rest by this 
great and publicly attested marvel, which has modified 
history, and the denial of which makes history at once 
untrustworthy and incoherent. When Jesus rose from 
the dead, the whole significance of His life and its 
events was deepened. 

This mention of the resurrection called them away 
from pleasant day-dreams, by reminding them that 
their Master was to die. For Him there was no 
illusion. Coming back from the light and voices of 
heaven, the cross before Him was as visible as ever 
to His undazzled eyes, and He was still the sober and 
vigilant friend to warn them against false hopes. They 
however found means of explaining the unwelcome 
truth away. Various theories were discussed among 
them, what the rising from the dead should mean, wha: 


4 we 


Mark ix. 14-29.] ZHE DEMONIAC BOY. 237 
should be in fact the limit to their silence. This very 
perplexity, and the chill upon their hopes, aided them 
to keep the matter close. 

One hope was too strong not to be at least hinted 
to Jesus. They had just seen Elias. Surely they were 
right in expecting his interference, as the scribes had 
taught. Instead of a lonely road pursued by the Mes- 
siah to a painful death, should not that great prophet 
come as a forerunner and restore all things? How 
then was murderous opposition possible ? 

And Jesus answered that one day this should come to 
pass. The herald should indeed reconcile all hearts, 
before the great and notable day of the Lord come. 
But for the present time there was another question. 
That promise to which they clung, was it their only 
light upon futurity ? Was not the assertion quite as 
plain that the Son of Man should suffer many things 
and be set at nought? So far was Jesus from that 
state of mind in which men buoy themselves up with 
false hope. No apparent prophecy, no splendid vision, 
deceived His unerring insight. And yet no despair 
arrested His energies for one hour. 

But, He added, Elias had already been offered to 
this generation in vain; they had done to him as they 
listed. They had re-enacted what history recorded of 
his life on earth. 
| Then a veil dropped from the disciples’ eyes. They 
recognised the dweller in lonely places, the man of 
hairy garment and ascetic life, persecuted by a feeble 
tyrant who cowered before his rebuke, and by the 
deadlier hatred of an adulterous queen. They saw how 
the very name of Elias raised a probability that the 
second prophe* should be treated ‘as tt is written of” 
the first. 


238 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


If then they had so strangely misjudged the prepara- 
tion of His way, what might they not apprehend of the 
issue ? So should also the Son of man suffer of them. 

Do we wonder that they had not hitherto recognised 
the prophet ? Perhaps, when all is made clear at last, 
we shall wonder more at our own refusals of reverence, 
our blindness to the meaning of noble lives, our mode- 


rate and qualified respect for men of whom the world - 


is not worthy. 

How much solid greatness would some of us over= 
look, if it went with an unpolished and unattractive 
exterior? Now the Baptist was a rude and abrupt 
person, of little culture, unwelcome in kings’ houses, 
Yet no greater had been born of woman, 


THE DEMONIAC BOY. 


«* And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great multitude 
about them, and scribes questioning with them. And straightway all 
the multitude, when they saw Him, were greatly amazed, and running 
to Him saluted Him. And He asked them, What question ye with 
them? And one of the multitude answered Him, Master, I brought 
unto Thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever it 
taketh him, it dasheth him down: and he foameth, and grindeth his 
teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to Thy disciples that they should 
cast it out ; and they were not able. And He answered them and saith, 
O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I 
bear with you? bring him unto Me. And they brought him unto Him : 
and when He saw hin, straightway the spirit tare him grievously; and 
he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And He asked his 
father, How long time is it since this hath come unto him? And he 
said, From a child. And oft-times it hath cast him both into the fire 
and into the waters, to destroy him: but if Thou canst do anything, 
have compassion on us, and help us. And Jesus said unto him, If 
thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth. Straight way 
the father of the child cried out, and said, I believe ; help Thou mine 
unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, 
He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf 
spirit, 1 command thee, come out of bim, and enter no more into him, 


as ¥ 
we 
0 ie 


M irkix 14-27.] THE DEMONIAC BOY. 239 


And having cried out, and torn him much, he came out: and fhe child 
became as one dead; insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. 
But Jesus took Him by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose. 
And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him 
privately, saying, We could not cast it out. And He said unto them, 
This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer.”—MARK ix. 
14-29 (R.V.). 

Peter soon had Striking evidence that it would not 
have been “good” for them to linger too long upon the 
mountain, And our Lord was recalied with painful 
abruptness from the glories of transfiguration to the 
scepticism of scribes, the failure and shame of disciples, 
and the triumph of the powers of evil. 

Tothe Twelve He had explicitly given authority over 
devils, and even the Seventy, venturing by faith to cast 
them out, had told Him of their success with joy. But 
now, in the sorrow and fear of these latter days, de- 
prived of their Master and of their own foremost three, 
oppressed with gloomy forebodings, and infected with 
the worldliness which fails to pray, the nine had striven 
in vain. It is the only distinct repulse recorded, and 
the scribes attacked them keenly. Where was their 
Master at this crisis? Did not they profess equally 
to have the necessary power? Here was a test, and 
some failed, and the others did not present themselves. 
We can imagine the miserable scene, contrasting 
piteously with what passed on the summit of the hill. 
And in the centre was an agonized father and a tor- 
tured lad. 

At this moment the crowds, profoundly moved, 
rushed to meet the Lord, and on seeing Him, became 
aware that failure was at an end. Perhaps the ex- 
ceeding brightness lingered still upon His face; perhaps 
it was but the unearthly and victorious calm of His 
consecration, visible in His mien; what is certain is 


240 GOSPEL OF S7. MARK. 





that they were greatly amazed, and ran to Him and did 
homage. 

Jesus at once challenged a renewal of the attack 
which had been too much for His apostles, ‘ What 
question ye with them?” But awe has fallen upon the 
scribes also, and misery is left to tell its own tale. 
Their attack by preference upon the disciples is very 
natural, and it by no means stands alone. They did 
not ask Him, but His followers, why He ate and drank 
with sinners, nor whether He paid the half-shekel 
(Mark ii. 16; Matt. xvii. 24). When they did complain 
to the Master Himself, it was commonly of some fault 
in His disciples: Why do Thy disciples fast not ? 
Why they do on the Sabbath day that which is not 
lawful? Why do they eat with defiled hands? (Mark 
ii. 18, 24; vii. 5). Their censures of Himself were 
usually muttered or silent murmurings, which He dis- 
cerned, as when He forgave the sins of the palsied man; 
when the Pharisee marvelled that He had not washed 
His hands; when He accepted the homage of the 
sinful woman, and again when He spoke her pardon 
(Mark ii. 8; Luke xi. 38; vii. 39-49). When He healed 
the woman whom a spirit of infirmity had bent down 
for eighteen years, the ruler of the synagogue spoke to 
the people, without venturing to address Jesus. (Luke 
xiii. 14). 

It is important to observe such indications, unob- 
trusive, and related by various evangelists, of the 
majesty and impressiveness which surrounded our 
Lord, and awed even His bitter foes. 

The silence is broken by an unhappy father, who had 
been the centre of the group, but whom the abrupt move- 
ment to meet Jesus has merged in the crowd again. 
The case of his son is among those which prove that 





Mark ix. 14-27.] THE DEMONIAC BOY. 241 
demoniacal possession did not imply the exceptional guilt 
of its victims, for though still young, he has suffered 
long. The demon which afflicts him is dumb; it works 
in the guise of epilepsy, and as a disease it is affected 
by the changes of the moon; a malicious design is 
visible in frequent falls into fire and water, to destroy 
him. The father had sought Jesus with him, and since 
He was absent had appealed to His followers, but in 
vain. Some consequent injury to his own faith, clearly 
implied in what follows, may possibly be detected 
already, in the absence of any further petition, and in 
the cold epithet, ‘‘ Teacher,” which he employs. 

Even as an evidence the answer of Jesus is remark- 
able, being such as human ingenuity would not have 
invented, nor the legendary spirit have conceived. It 
would have seemed natural that He should hasten to 
vindicate His claims and expose the folly of the scribes, 
or else have reproached His followers for the failure 
which had compromised Him. 

But the scribes were entirely set aside from the 
moment when the Good Physician was invoked by a 
bleeding heart. Yet the physical trouble is dealt with 
deliberately, not in haste, as by one whose mastery is 
assured. The passing shadow which has fallen on His 
cause only concerns Him as a part of the heavy spi- 
ritual burden which oppresses Him, which this terrible 
scene so vividly exhibits. 

For the true importance of His words is this, that 
they reveal sufferings which are too often forgotten, and 
which few are pure enough even to comprehend. The 
prevalent evil weighed upon Him. And here the visible 
power of Satan, the hostility of the scribes, the failure 
of His own, the suspense and agitation of the crowd, 
all breathed the spirit of that evil age, alien and harsh 

16 


242 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





to Him as an infected atmosphere. He blames none 
more than others ; it is the ‘‘ generation,” so faithless 
and perverse, which forces Him to exclaim: ‘“ How long 
shall I be with you ? how long shall I bear with you ?” 
It is the cry of the pain of Jesus. It bids us to con- 
sider Him Who endured such centradiction of sinners, 
who were even sinners against Himself. So that the 
distress of Jesus was not that of a mere eye-witness 
of evil or sufferer by it. His priesthood established a 
closer and more agonizing connection between our Lord 
and the sins which tortured Him, 

Do the words startie us, with the suggestion of a 
limit to the forbearance of Jesus, well-nigh reached ? 
There was such a limit. The work of His messenger 
had been required, lest His coming should be to smite 
the world. His mind was the mind of God, and it 
is written, Kiss the Son, lest He be angry. 

Now if Jesus looked forward to shame and anguish 
with natural shrinking, we here perceive another aspect 
in which His coming Baptism of Blood was viewed, 
and we discover why He was straitened until 1t was 
accomplished. There is an intimate connection between 
this verse and His saying in St. John, “If ye loved Me, 
ye would rejoice, because I go unto My Father.” 

But swiftly the mind of Jesus recurs to the misery 
which awaits help; and He bids them bring the child 
to Him. Now the sweet influence of His presence 
would have soothed and mitigated any mere disease. It 
is to such influence that sceptical writers are wont to 
turn for an explanation, such as it is, of the works He 
wrought. But it was the reverse in cases of possession. 
There a wild sense of antagonism and revolt was wont 
to showitself. And we might learn that this was some- 
thing more than epilepsy, even were it left doubtful 


Mark ix. 14-27.} THE DEMONIAC BOY. 243 


otherwise, by the outburst of Satanic rage. When he 
saw Him, straightway the spirit convulsed him griev- 
ously, and he fell wallowing and foaming. 

Yet Jesus is neither hurried nor agitated. In not 
one of His miracles does precipitation, or mere impulse, 
mingle with His grave and self-contained compassion. 
Hie will question the scribes while the man with a 
withered hand awaits His help. He will rebuke the 
disciples before quelling the storm. At Nain He will 
touch the bier and arrest the bearers. When He feeds 
the multitude, He will first command a search for loaves. 
He wiil stand still and call Bartimzeus to Him. He 
will evoke, even by seeming harshness, the faith of the 
woman of Canaan. He will have the stone rolled away 
from the sepulchre of Lazarus. When He Himself 
rises, the grave-clothes are found folded up, and the 
napkin which bound His head laid in a place by itself, 
the last tribute of mortals to His mortality not being 
flung contemptuously aside. All His miracles are 
authenticated by the stamp of the same character— 
serene, not in haste nor tardy, since He saw the end 
from the beginning. In this case delay is necessary, to 
arouse the father, if only by interrogation, from his dull 
disappointment and hopelessness. He asks therefore 
“How long time is it since this came upon him ?” and the 
answer shows that he was now at least a stripling, for he 
had suffered ever since he was a child. Then the un- 
happy man is swept away by his emotions: as he tells 
their sorrows, and thinks what a wretched life or miser- 
able death lies before his son, he bursts into a pas- 
sionate appeal. If Thou canst do anything, do this. 
Let pity for such misery, for the misery of father as 
well as child, evoke all Thy power to save. The form 
is more disrespectful than the substance of his cry ; its 


244 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





very vehemence is evidence that some hope is working 
in his breast; and there is more real trust in its 
wild urgency than in many a reverential and carefully 
weighed prayer. 

Yet how much rashness, self-assertion, and wilful- 
ness (which is really unbelief) were mingled with his 
germinant faith and needed rebuke. Therefore Christ 
responded with his own word: “If thou canst: thou 
sayest it to Me, but I retort the condition upon thyself: 
with thee are indeed the issues of thine own application, 
for all things are possible to him that believeth.” 

This answer is in two respects important. There 
was a time when popular religion dealt too much with 
internal experience and attainment. But perhaps there 
are schools among us now which verge upon the op- 
posite extreme. Faith and love are generally strongest 
when they forget themselves, and do not say “I am 
faithful and loving,” but “ Christ is trustworthy, Christ 
is adorable.” This is true, and these virtues are be- 
coming artificial, and so false, as soon as they grow 
self-complacent. Yet we should give at least enough 


attention to our own attainments to warn us of our ~ 


deficiencies. And wherever we find a want of blessed- 
ness, we may seek for the reason within ourselves. 
Many a one is led to doubt whether Christ “can do 
anything” practical for him, since private prayer and 
-public ordinances help him little, and his temptations 
continue to prevail, whose true need is to be roused 
up sharply to the consciousness that it is not Christ 
who has failed; it is he himself: his faith is dim, his 
grasp on his Lord is half hearted, he is straitened in 
his own affections. Our personal experiences should 
never teach us confidence, Lut they may often serve 
to humble and warn us. 





Mark ix. 14-27.] THE DEMOAIAC BOY. 248 


This answer also impresses upon us the dignity of 
Him who speaks. Failure had already come through 
the spiritual defects of His disciples, but for Him, though 
“meek and lowly of heart,’ no such danger is even 
contemplated. No appeal to Him can be frustrated 
except through fault of the suppliant, since all things are 
possible to him that believeth. 

Now faith is in itself nothing, and may even be per- 
nicious ; all its effect depends upon the object. Trust 
reposed in a friend avails or misleads according to his 
love and his resources ; trust in a traitor is ruinous, 
and ruinous in proportion to its energy. And since 
trust in Jesus is omnipotent, Who and what is He ? 

The word pierces like a two-edged sword, and reveals to 
the agitated father the conflict, the impurity of his heart. 
Unbelief is there, and of himself he cannot conquer 
it. Yet is he not entirely unbelieving, else what drew 
him thither? What impulse led to that passionate 
recital of his griefs, that over-daring cry of anguish ? 
And what is now this burning sense within him of 
a great and inspiring Presence, which urges him to 
a bolder appeal for a miracle yet more spiritual and 
Divine, a cry well directed to the Author and Finisher 
of our faith? Never was medicine better justified by 
its operation upon disease, than the treatment which 
converted a too-importunate clamour for bodily relief 
into a contrite prayer for grace. “TI believe, help Thou 
mine unbelief.” The same sense of mixed imperfect and 
yet real trust shoul: exist in every one of us, or else our 
belief being perfect should be irresistible in the moral 
sphere, and in the physical world so resigned, so con- 
fident in the Love which governs, as never to be con- 
scicus of any gnawing importunate desire. And from the 
same sense of need, the same cry for help should spring, 


246 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 








Miraculous legends have gathered around the lives 
of many good and gracious men within Christendom 
and outside it. But they cannot claim to weigh 
against the history of Jesus, until at least one example 
can be produced of such direct spiritual action, so pro- 
found, penetrating and effectual, inextricably interwoven 
in the tissue of any fable. 

All this time the agitation of the people had in- 
creased. A multitude was rushing forward, whose 
excitement would do more to distract the father’s mind 
than further delay to help him. And Jesus, even in 
the midst of His treatment of souls, was not blind to 
such practical considerations, or to the influence of 
circumstances. Unlike modern dealers in sensation, 
He can never be shown to have aimed at religious 
excitement, while it was His custom to discourage it. 
Therefore He now rebuked the unclean spirit in the lad, 
addressing it directly speaking as a superior. “Thou 
deaf and dumb spirit, I command thee, come out of 
him,” and adding, with explicitness which was due per- 
haps to the obstinate ferocity of “this kind,” or perhaps 
was intended to help the father’s lingering unbelief, 
“enter no more into him.” The evil being obeys, yet 
proves his reluctance by screaming and convulsing his 
victim for the last time, so that he, though healed, 
lies utterly prostrate, and ‘‘the-more part said, He is 
dead.” It was a fearful exhibition of the disappointed 
malice of the pit. But it only calls forth another display 
of the power and love of Jesus, Who will not leave the 
sufferer to a gradual recovery, nor speak, as to the 
fiend, in words of mere authority, but reaches forth 
His benign hand, and raises him, restored. Here we 
discover the same heart which provided that the 
daughter of Jairus should have food, and delivered her 





Mark ix. 28-37.] JESUS AND THE DISCIPLES. 247 





son to the widow of Nain, and was first to remind 
others that Lazarus was encumbered by his grave- 
clothes. The good works of Jesus were not melodram- 
atic marvels for stage effect: they were the natural 
acts of supernatural power and love. 


JESUS AND THE DISCIPLES, 


* And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him 
privately, sayzzg, We could not cast it out. And He said unto them, 
This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer. And they went 
forth from thence, and passed through Galilee ; and He would not that 
any man should know it. For He taught His disciples, and said unto 
them, The Son of man is delivered up into the hands of men, and they 
shall kill Him; and when He is killed, after three days He shall rise 
again. But they understood not the saying, and were afraid to ask 
Him. And they came to Capernaum: and when He was in the house 
He asked them, What were ye reasoning in the way? But they held 
their peace: for they had disputed one with another in the way. who 
was the greatest. And He sat down, and called the twelve; and He 
saith unto them, If any man would be first, he shall be last of all, and 
minister of all. And He took a little child, and set him in the midst 
of them: and taking him in His arms, He said unto them, Whosoever 
shall receive one of such little children in My name, receiveth Me ; and 
whosoever receiveth Me, receiveth not Me but Him that sent Me.”— 
Mark ix. 28-37 (R.V.). 


Wuen the apostles had failed to expel the demon from 
the child, they gave a very natural expression to their 
disappointment. Waiting until Jesus was in private 
and in the house, they said, ‘‘ We for our parts were 
unable to cast it out.” They take no blame to them- 
selves. The tone is rather of perplexity and complaint 
because the commission formerly received had not held 
good. And it implies the question which is plainly 
expressed by St. Matthew, Why could we not cast it 
out? Their very unconsciousness of personal blame 
is ominous, and Jesus replies that the fault is entirely 
their own. They ought to have stimulated, as He did 


248 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





afterwards, what was flagging but not absent in the 
father, what their failure must have daunted further in 
him. Want of faith had overcome them, says the 
fuller account : the brief statement in St. Mark is, “ This 
kind (of demon) can come out by nothing but by 
prayer”; to which fasting was added as a second cons 
dition by ancient copyists, but without authority. What 
is important is to observe the connection between faith 
and prayer; so that while the devil would only have 
gone out if they had prayed, or even perhaps only if 
they had been men of prayer, yet their failure was 
through unbelief. It plainly follows that prayer is the 
nurse of faith, and would have strengthened it so that 
it should prevail. Only in habitual communion with 
God can we learn to trust Him aright. There, as we 
feel His nearness, as we are reminded that He bends 
to hear our cry, as the sense of eternal and perfect 
power blends with that of immeasurable love, and His 
sympathy becomes a realized abiding fact, as our vain- 
glory is rebuked by confessions of sin, and of depend- 
ence, it is made possible for man to wield the forces of 
the spiritual world and yet not to be intoxicated with 
pride. The nearness of God is inconsistent with 
boastfulness of man. For want of this, it was better 
that the apostles should fail and be humbled, than 
succeed and be puffed up. 

There are promises still unenjoyed, dormant and 
unexercised powers at the disposal of the Church 
to-day. If in many Christian families the children are 
not practically holy, if purity and consecration are not 
leavening our Christian land, where after so many 
centuries license is but little abashed and the faith 
of Jesus is still disputed, if the heathen are not yet 
given for our Lord’s inheritance nor the uttermost 


Mark ix. 28-37.] JESUS AND THE DISCIPLES. 249 





parts of the earth for His possession—-why are we 
unable to cast out the devils that afflict cur race? It 
is because our efiorts are so faithless. And this again 
is because they are not inspired and elevated by 
sufficient communion with our God in prayer. 

Further evidences continued to be given of tne 
dangerous state of the mind of His followers, weighed 
down by earthly hopes and fears, wanting in faith and 
prayer, and therefore open to the sinister influences 
of the thief who was soon to become the traitor. 
They were now moving for the last time through 
(salilee. It was a difierent procession from those glad 
circuits, not long before, when enthusiasm everywhere 
rose high, and sometimes the people would have 
crowned Him. Now He would not that any man 
should know it. The word which tells of His journey 
seems to imply that He avoided the main thorough- 
fares, and went by less frequented by-ways. Partly 
no doubt His motives were prudential, resulting from 
the treachery which He discerned. Partly it was 
because His own spirit was heavily weighed upon, 
and retirement was what He needed most. And 
certainly most of all because crowds and tumult would 
have utterly unfitted the apostles to learn the hard 
lesson, how vain their daydreams were, and what a 
trial lay before their Master. 

We read that ‘“ He taught them” this, which implies 
move than a single utterance, as also perhaps does the 
remarkable phrase in St. Luke, “ Let these sayings sink 
into your ears.” When the warning is examined, we 
find it almost a repetition of what they had heard after 
Peter's great confession. Then they had apparently 
supposed the cross of their Lord to be such a figurative 
one as all His followers have to bear. Even after the 


250 GOSPEL OF SI_ MAKK. 


Transfiguration, the chosen three had searched for a 
meaning for the resurrection from the dead. But now, 
when the words were repeated with a naked, crude, 
resolute distinctness, marvellous from the lips of Him 
Who should endure the reality, and evidently chosen in 
order to beat down their lingering evasive hopes, when 
He says “ They shall kill Him, and when He is killed, 
after three days He shall rise again,” surely they ought 
to have understood. 

In fact they comprehended enough to shrink from 
hearing more. They did not dare to lift the veil which 
covered a mystery so dreadful ; they feared to ask 
Him. It is a natural impulse, not to know the worst. 
Insolvent tradesmen leave their books unbalanced. The 
course of history would have run in another channel, 
if the great Napoleon had looked in the face the need 
to fortify his own capital while plundering others. No 
wonder that these Galileans recoiled from searching 
what was the calamity which weighed so heavily upon 
the mighty spirit of their Master. Do not men stifle 
the voice of conscience, and refuse to examine them- 
selves whether they are in the faith, in the same abject 
dread of knowing the facts, and looking the inevitable 
in the face? How few there are, who bear to think, 
calmly and well, of the certainties of death and judg- 
ment ? 

But at the appointed time, the inevitable arrived for 
the disciples. The only effect of their moral cowardice 
was that it found them unready, surprised and there- 
fore fearful, and still worse, prepared to forsake Jesus 
by having already in heart drawn away from Him, by 
having refused to comprehend and share His sorrows. 
It is easy to blame them, to assume that in their place 
we should not have been partakers in their evil deeds, 


Mark ix. 28-37.] JESUS AND THE DISCIPLES. 2be 
to make little of the chosen foundation stones upon 
which Christ would build His New Jerusalem. But 
in so doing we forfeit the sobering lesscns of their 
weakness, who failed, not because they were less than 
we, but because they were not more than mortal. And 
we who censure them are perhaps indolently refusing 
day by day to reflect, to comprehend the meaning of 
our own lives and of their tendencies, to realize a 
thousand warnings, less terrible only because they con- 
tinue to be conditional, but claiming more attention for 
that very reason. 

Contrast with their hesitation the noble fortitude 
with which Christ faced His agony. It was His, and 
their concern in it was secondary. Yet for their sakes 
He bore to speak of what they could not bear to hear. 
Therefore to Him there came no surprise, no sudden 
shock ; His arrest found Him calm and reassured after 
the conflict in the Garden, and after all the preparation 
which had already gone forward through all these 
latter days. 

One only ingredient in His cup of bitterness is now 
added to those which had been already mentioned : 
“The Son of man is delivered up into the hands of 
men.” And this is the same which He mentioned in the 
Garden: “The Son of man is betrayed into the hands 
of sinners.” 

It was that from which David recoiled when he said, 
*“Let me fall into the hands of God, but let me not fall 
into the hands of men.” Suffering has not reached its 
height until conscious malice designs the pang, and 
says, “So woula we have it.” Especially true was 
this of the most tender of all hearts. Yet this also 
Jesus foreknew, while He steadfastly set His face to go 
tov ird Jerusalem 


252 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Faithless inability to grapple with the powers of 
darkness, faithless unreadiness to share the cross of 
Jesus, what was to be expected next ? Estrangement, 
jealousy and ambition, the passions of the world heaving 
in the bosom of the Church. But while they fail to 
discern the spirit of Judas, the Lord discerned theirs, 
and asked them in the house, What were ye reasoning 
in the way? It was a sweet and gentle prudence, 
which had not corrected them publicly nor while their 
tempers were still ruffled, nor in the language of severe 
rebuke, for by the way they had not only reasoned but 
disputed one with another, who was the greatest. 

Language of especial honour had been addressed to 
Peter. Three had become possessed of a remarkable 
secret on the Holy Mount, concerning which hints on 
one side, and surmises on the other, may easily have 
excited jealousy. The failure of the nine to cast out the 
devil would also, as they were not humbled, render 
them irritable and self-asserting. 

But they held their peace. No one asserted his 
right to answer on behalf of all. Peter, who was so 
willingly their spokesman at other times, did not vindicate 
his boasted pre-eminencenow. The claim which seemed 
so reasonable while they forgot Jesus, was a thing to 
blush for in His presence. And they, who feared to 
ask Him of His own sufferings, knew enough to feel the 
contrast between their temper, their thoughts and His. 
Would that we too by prayer and self-examination, 
more often brought our desires and ambitions into the 
searching light of the presence cf the lowly King of 
kings. 

The calmness of their Lord was in strange contrast 
with their confusion. He pressed no further His 
inquiry, but left them to weig?. His silence in this respect 


Mark ix. 38-50. ] OFFENCES. 253 





against their own. But importing by His action some- 
thing deliberate and grave, He sat down and called the 
Twelve, and pronounced the great law of Christian 
rank, which is lowliness and the lowliest service. “If 
any man would be the first, he shall be the least of all, 
and the servant of all.” When Kaisers and Popes 
ostentatiously wash the feet of paupers, they do not 
really serve, and therefore they exhibit no genuine 
lowliness. Christ does not speak of the luxurious 
nursing of a sentiment, but of that genuine humility 
which effaces itself that it may really become a servant 
ofthe rest. Nor does He prescribe this as a penance, 
but as the appointed way to eminence. Something 
similar He had already spoken, bidding men sit down 
in the lowest room, that the Master of the house might 
call them higher. But it is in the next chapter, when 
despite this lesson the sons of Zebedee persisted ir 
claiming the highest places, and the indignation of the 
rest betrayed the very passion it resented, that Jesus 
fully explains how lowly service, that wholesome 
medicine for ambition, is the essence of the very great- 
ness in pursuit of which men spurn it. 

To the precept, which will then be more conveniently 
examined, Jesus now added a practical lesson of 
amazing beauty. In the midst of twelve rugged and 
unsympathetic men, the same who, despite this action, 
presently rebuked parents for seeking the blessing of 
Christ upon their babes, Jesus sets alittle child. What 
but the grace and love which shone upon the sacred 
face could have prevented this little one from being 
utterly disconcerted? But children have a strange 
sensibility for love. Presently this happy child was 
caught up in His arms, and pressed to His bosom, and 
there He seems to have lain while John, possibly con- 


254 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





science-stricken, asked a question and received an unex- 
pected answer. And the silent pathetic trust of this His 
lamb found its way to the heart of Jesus, who presently 
spoke of “these little ones who believe in Me” (v. 42), 

Meanwhile the child illustrated in a double sense 
the rule of greatness which He had laid down. So 
great is lowliness that Christ Himself may be found 
in the person of a little child. And again, so great is 
service, that in receiving one, even one, of the multitude 
of children who claim our sympathies, we receive the 
very Master; and in that lowly Man, who was among 
them as He that serveth, is manifested the very God ; 
whoso receiveth Me receiveth not Me but Him that 
sent me, 


OFFENCES. 


«John said unto Him, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy 
Name: and we forbade him, because he followed not us. But Jesas 
said, Forbid him not : for there is no man which shall doa mighty work 
in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me. For he that is 
not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water 
to drink, because ye are Christ’s, verily I say unto you, he shall in no 
wise lose his reward. And whosoever shall cause one of these little 
ones that believe on Me to stumble, it were better for him if a great 
millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 
And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is good for thee to 
enter into life maimed, rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, 
into the unquenchable fire. And if thy foot cause thee to stumble, cut 
it off : it is good for thee to enter into life halt, rather than having thy 
two feet to be cast into hell. And if thine eye cause thee to stumble, 
cast it out: it is good for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with 
one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell; where their 
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be 
salted with fire. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saliness, 
wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace 
one with another.” — Mark ix. 38-50 (R.V.). 


When Jesus spoke of the blessedness of receiving in 
His name even a little child, the conscience of St. John 





Mark ix. 38-50.] OFFENCES. 255 


became uneasy. They had seen one casting out devils 
in that name, and had forbidden him, “ because he 
followeth not us.” The spirit of partizanship which 
these words betray is somewhat softer in St. Luke, but 
it exists. He reports “because he followeth not 
(Jesus) with us.” 

The behaviour of the disciples all through this period 
is unsatisfactory. From the time when Peter contra- 
dicted and rebuked Jesus, down to their final desertion, 
there is weakness at every turn. And this is a curious 
example of it, that immediately after having failed them- 
selves,* they should rebuke another for doing what their 
Master had once declared could not possibly be an evil 
work. If Satan cast out Satan his house was divided 
against itself: if the finger of God was there no doubt 
the kingdom of God was come unto them. 

It is interesting and natural that St. John should 
have introduced the question. Others were usually 
more forward, but that was because he was more 
thoughtful. Peter went first into the sepulchre; but he 
first, seeing what was there, believed. And it was he 
who said “It is the Lord,” although Peter thereupon 
plunged into the lake to reach Him. Discerning and 
grave: such is the character from which his Gospel 
would naturally come, and it belongs to him who first 
discerned the rebuke to their conduct implied in the 
words of Jesus. He was right. The Lord answered, 
“ Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a 
mighty work in My name, and be able quickly to speak 
evil of Me:” his own action would seal his lips; he 
would have committed himself. Now this points out a 
very serious view of human life, too often overlooked. 


* That the event was recent is implied in the present tense: “he 
followcth not": ‘forbid him not”; the matter is still fresh. 





256 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








The deed of to-day rules to-morrow; one is half en- 
slaved by the consequences of his own free will. Let 
no man, hesitating between two lines of action, ask, 
What harm in this ? what use in that ? without adding, 
And what future actions, good or evil, may they carry 
in their train ? 

The man whom they had rebuked was at least certain 
to be for a time detached from the opponents of truth, 
silent if not remonstrant when it ‘as assailed, diluting 
and enfeebiing the enmity of its opponents. And so 
Christ laid down the principle, “‘ He that is not against 
us is for us.” In St. Luke the words are more plainly 
pointed against this party spirit, ‘‘ He that is not against 
you is for you.” 

How shall we reconcile this principle with Christ’s 
declaration elsewhere, ‘He that is not with Me is 
against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me 
scattereth” ? 

It is possible to argue that there is no contradiction 
whatever, for both deny the existence of a neutral class, 
and from this it equally follows that he who is not with 
is against, and he who is not against 1s with us. But 
this answer only evades the difficulty, which is, that one 
passage reckons seeming neutrality as friendship, while 
the other denounces it as enmity. 

A closer examination reveals a.more profound recon- 
ciliation. In St. Matthew, Christ announced His own 
personal claim ; in St. Mark He declares that His people 
must not share it. Towards Christ Himself, indifference 
is practical rejection. The manifestation of God was 
not made to be criticised or set aside: He loves them 
who love Him; He demands the hearts He died for; 
and to give Him less is to refuse Him the travail of His 
soul. Therefore He that is not with Christ is against 


Mark ix. 38-50.] OFFENCES. 257 


Him. The man who boasts that he does no harm but 
makes no pretence of religion, is proclaiming that one 
may innocently refuse Christ. And it is very noteworthy 
that St. Matthew's aphorism was evoked, like this, Ly 
a question about the casting out of devils. There the 
Pharisees had said that He cast out devils by Beelzebub. 
And Jesus had warned all who heard, that in such a 
controversy, to be indifferent was to deny him. Here, 
the man had himself appealed to the power of Jesus. 
He had passed, long ago, the stage of cool semi-con- 
temptuous indifference. Whether he was a disciple of 
the Baptist, not yet entirely won, or a later convert who 
shrank from the loss of all things, what is plain is that 
he had come far on the way towards Jesus. It does not 
follow that he enjoyed a saving faith, for Christ will at 
last profess to many who cast out devils in His name, 
that He never knew them. But intellectual persuasion 
and some active reliance were there. Let them beware 
of crushing the germs, because they were not yet deve- 
loped. Nor should the disciples suppose that loyalty 
to their organization, although Christ was with them, 
was the same as loyalty to Him. “He that is not 
against you is for you,” according to St. Luke. Nay 
more, “ He that is not against ws is for us,” according 
to St. Mark. But already He had spoken the stronger 
word, ‘‘ He that is not for A/e is against Me.” 

No verse has been more employed than this in 
sectarian controversy. And sometimes it has been 
pressed too far. The man whom St. John would have 
silenced was not spreading a rival organization; and 
we know how the same Apostle wrote, long afterwards, 
of those who did so: “If they had been of us, they would 
have continued with us; but they went out that they 
might be made manifest how all they are not of us” 


17 


‘258 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


(1 John ii. 19). This was simply a doer of good with- 
out ecclesiastical sanction, and the warning of the text 
is against all who would use the name of discipline 
or of order to bridle the zeal, to curb the energies, of 
any Christian soul. But it is at least as often the new 
movement as the old organization that would silence all 
who follow not with it. 

But the energies of Christ and His gospel can never 
be monopolized by any organization whatsoever. Every 
good gift and every perfect gift, wherever we behold it, 
is from Him. 

() All help, then, is to be welcomed ; not to hinder is to 
speed the cause. And therefore Jesus, repeating a 
former saying, adds that whosoever, moved by the 
name of Christ, shall give His followers one cup of 
water, shall be rewarded. He may be and continue 
outside the Church ; his after life may be sadly incon- 
sistent with this one action: that is not the question; 
the sole condition is the genuine motive—one impulse of 
true respect, one flicker of loyalty, only decided enough 
to speed the weary ambassador with the simplest possible 
refreshment, should “ in no wise lose its reward.” Does 
this imply that the giver should assuredly enter heaven ? 
Alas, no. But this it says, that every spark of fire in 
the smoking flax is tended, every gracious movement 
is answered by a gift of further grace, to employ or to 
abuse. Not more surely is the thirsty disciple refreshed, 
than the feverish worldliness of him who just attains to 
render this service is fanned and cooled by breezes from 
heaven, he becomes aware of a deeper and nobler life, 
he is melted and drawn towards better things. Very 
blessed, or very miserable is he who cannot remember 
the holy shame, the yearning, the sigh because he is 
not always thus, which followed naturally upon some 





a 


Mark ix. 38-50.] OFFENCES. ; "259 


deed, small in itself perhaps, but good enough to be 
inconsistent with his baser self. The deepening of 
spiritual capacity is one exceeding great reward of every 
act of loyalty to Christ. 

This was graciously said of a deed done to the 
apostles, despite their failures, rivalries, and rebukes 
of those who would fain speed the common cause. 
Not, however, because they were apostles, but “ be- 
cause ye are Christ’s.” And so was the least, so was 
the child who clung to Him. But if the slightest sym- 
pathy with these is thus laden with blessing, then to 
hinder, to cause to stumble one such little one, how 
terrible was that. Better to die a violent and shameful 
death, and never sleep in a peaceful grave. 

There is a worse peril than from others. We our- 
selves may cause ourselves to stumble. We may 
pervert beyond recall things innocent, natural, all but 
necessary, things near and dear and useful to our 
daily life as are our very limbs. The loss of them may 
be so lasting a deprivation that we shall enter heaven 
maimed. But if the moral evil is irrevocably identified 
with the worldly good, we must renounce it. 

The hand with its subtle and marvellous power may 
well stand for harmless accomplishments now fraught 
with evil suggestiveness; for innocent modes of liveli- 
hood which to relinquish means crippled helplessness, 
yet which have become hopelessly entangled with 
unjust or at least questionable ways; for the great 
possessions, honestly come by, which the ruler would 
not sell; for all endowments which we can no longer 
hope to consecrate, and which make one resemble the 
old Chaldeans, whose might was their god, who 
sacrificed to their net and burned incense to their drag, 

And the foot, with its swiltness in boyhood, its pled- 


260 “GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





ding walk along the pavement in maturer age, may 
well represent the caprices of youth so hard to curb, 
and also the half-mechanical habits which succeed to 
these, and by which manhood is ruled, often to its 
destruction. If the hand be capacity, resource, and 
possession, the foot is swift perilous impulse, and also 
fixed habitude, monotonous recurrence, the settled ways 
of the world. 

Cut off hand and foot, and what is left to the muti- 
lated trunk, the ravaged and desolated life? Desire 
is left; the desire of the eyes. The eyes may not 
touch the external world; all may now be correct in 
our actions and intercourse with men. But yet greed, 
passion, inflamed imagination may desecrate the temple 
of the soul. The eyes misled Eve when she saw that 
the fruit was good, and David on his palace roof. 
Before the eyes of Jesus, Satan spread his third and 
worst temptation. And our Lord seems to imply that 
this last sacrifice of the worst because the deepest evil 
must be made with indignant vehemence; hand and 
foot must be cut off, but the eye must be cast out, 
though life be half darkened in the process. 

These latter days have invented a softer gospel, 
which proclaims that even the fallen err if they utterly 
renounce any good creature of God, which ought to 
be received with thanksgiving; that the duty of 
moderation and self-control can never be replaced by 
renunciation, and that distrust of any lawful enjoyment 
revives the Manichean heresy. Is the eye a good 
creature of God? May the foot be received with 
thanksgiving? Is the hand a source of lawful enjoy- 
ment ? Yet Jesus made these the types of what must, 
if it has become an occasion of stumbling, be entirely 
cast away. 


Mark ix. 38-50.] OFFENCES. 261 





He added that in such cases the choice is between 
mutilation and the loss of all. It is no longer a 
question of the full improvement of every faculty, the 
doubling of all the talents, but a choice between living a 
life impoverished and half spoiled, and going complete 
to Gehenna, to the charnel valley where the refuse 
of Jerusalem was burned in a continual fire, and the 
worm of corruption never died. The expression is too 
metaphorical to decide such questions as that of the 
eternal duration of punishment, or of the nature of the 
suffering of the lost. The metaphors of Jesus, how- 
ever, are not employed to exaggerate His meaning, but 
only to express it. And what He said is this: The 
man who cherishes one dear and excusable occasion 
of offence, who spares himself the keenest spiritual 
surgery, shall be cast forth with everything that 
defileth, shall be ejected with the offal of the New 
Jerusalem, shall suffer corruption like the transgressors 
of whom Isaiah first used the tremendous phrase, “ their 
worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched,” 
shall endure at once internal and external misery, as of 
decomposition and of burning. 

Such is the most terrible menace that ever crossed 
the lips into which grace was poured. And it was not 
addressed to the outcast or the Pharisee, but to His 
own. They were called to the highest life; on them 
the influences of the world was to be as constant and as 
disintegrating as that of the weather upon a mountain 
top. Therefore they needed solemn warning, and the 
counter-pressure of those awful issues known to be 
dependent on their stern self-discipline. They could 
not, He said in an obscure passage which has been 
greatly tampered with, they could not escape fiery 
suffering in some form. But the fire which tried would 


262 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


preserve and bless them if they endured it ; every one 
shall be salted with fire. But if they who ought to be 
the salt of the world received the grace of God in vain, 
if the salt have lost its saltness, the case is desperate 
indeed. 

And since the need of this solemn warning sprang 
from their rivalry and partizanship, Jesus concludes 
with an emphatic charge to discipline and correct 
themselves and to beware of impeding others: to be 
searching in the closet, and charitable in the church: 

\to have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one 
another. 


CHAPTER X. 
DIVORCE. 


© And He arose from thence, and cometh into the borders of Judzea 
and beyond Jordan: and multitudes come together unto Him again; 
and, as He was wont, He taught themagain. And there came unto Him 
Pharisees, and asked Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife ? 
tempting Him. And He answered and said unto them, What did 
Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of 
divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For 
your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the 
beginning of the creation, Male and female made He them. For this 
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his 
‘wife ; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are no more 
twain, but one flesh. What therefore Cod hath joined together, let no 
man put asunder. And in the house the disciples asked Him again of 
this matter. And He saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his 
wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her: and if she 
herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth 
adultery.” —MARK x, I-12 (R.V). 


T is easy to read without emotion that Jesus arose 
from the scene of His last discourse, and came into 

the borders of Judzea beyond Jordan. But not without 
emotion did Jesus bid farewell to Galilee, to the home 
of His childhood and sequestered youth, the cradle of 
His Church, the centre of nearly all the love and faith 
He had awakened. When closer still to death, His 
heart reverted to Galilee, and He promised that wher. 
He was risen He would go thither before His disciples. 
Now He had to leave it. And we must not forget thax 
every step He took towards Jerusalem was a deliberate 


264 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK. 





approach to His assured and anticipated cross. He 
was not like other brave men, who endure death when 
it arrives, but are sustained until the crisis by a 
thousand flattering hopes and undefined possibilities. 
Jesus knew precisely where and how He should suffer. 
And now, as He arose from Galilee, every step said, 
Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. 

As soon as He entered Perea beyond Jordan, multi- 
tudes came to Him again. _ Nor did His burdened heart 

ress His zeal: rather He found relief in their impor- 
tunity and in His Father’s business, and so, “as He 
was wont, He taught them again.” These simple words 
express the rule He lived by, the patient continuance 
in well-doing which neither hostilities nor anxieties 
could chill. 

Not long was He left undisturbed. The Pharisees 
come to Him with a question dangerous in itself, be- 
cause there is no conceivable answer which will not 
estrange many, and especially dangerous for Jesus, 
because already, on the Mount, He has spoken upon 
this subject words at seeming variance with His free 
views concerning sabbath observance, fasting, and cere- 
monial purity. Most perilous of all was the decision 
they expected when given by a teacher already under 
suspicion, and now within reach of that Herod who had, 
during the lifetime of his first wife, married the wife of 
a living man. “Is it lawful for a man to put away his 
wife for every cause?” It was a decision upon this 
very subject which had proved fatal to the forerunner, 

But Jesus spoke out plainly. In a question and 
answer which are variously reported, what is clear is 
that He carefully distinguished between a command 
and a permission of Moses. Divorce had been allowed; 
yes, but some reason had been exacted, whatever dis- 


Mark x. I-12.] DIVORCE. 265 


putes might exist about its needful gravity, and de- 
liberation had been enforced by demanding a legal 
document, a writing of divorcement. Thus conscience 
was bidden to examine its motives, and time was gained 
for natural relentings. But after all, Jesus declared 
that divorce was only a concession to their hardness of 
heart. Thus we learn that Old Testament institutions 
were not all and of necessity an expression of the 
Divine ideal. They were sometimes a temporary con- 
cession, meant to lead to better things; an expedient 
rather than a revelation. 

These words contain the germ of St. Paul’s doctrine 
that the law itself was a schoolmaster, and its function 
temporary. 

To whatever concessions Moses had been driven, the 
original and unshaken design of God was that man and 
woman should find the permanent completion of their 
lives each in the other. And this is shown by three 
separate considerations. The first is the plan of the 
creation, making them male and female, and such that 
body and soul alike are only perfect when to each its 
complement is added, when the masculine element and 
the feminine ‘‘ each fulfils defect in each . . . the two- 
celled heart beating with one full stroke life.” Thus 
by anticipation Jesus condemned the tame-spirited 
verdict of His disciples, that since a man cannot relieve 
himself from a union when it proves galling, ‘it is not 
good” to marry at all. To this he distinctly answered 
that such an inference could not prove even tolerable, 
except when nature itself, or else some social wrong, or 
else absorbing devotion to the cause of God, virtually 
cancelled the original design. But already he had here 
shown that such prudential calculation degrades man, 
leaves him incomplete, trave-ses the design of God 


266 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Why» from the beginning of the creation made them 
male and female. In our own days, the relation between 
the sexes is undergoing a social and legislative revolu- 
tion. Now Christ says not a word against the equal 
rights of the sexes, and in more than one passage St. 
Paul goes near to assert it. But equality is not identity, 
either of vocation or capacity. This text asserts the 
separate and reciprocal vocation of each, and it is 
worthy of consideration, how far the special vocation of 
womanhood is consistent with loud assertion of her 
“separate rights.” 

Christ’s second proof that marriage cannot be dis- 
solved without sin is that glow of heart, that noble aban- 
donment, in which a man leaves even father and mother 
for the joy of his youth and the love of his espousals. 
In that sacred hour, how hideous and base a wanton 
divorce would be felt to be. Now man is not free to 
live by the mean, calculating, selfish afterthought, which 
breathes like a frost on the bloom of his noblest impulses 
and aspirations. He should guide himself by the light of 
his highest and most generous intuitions. 

And the third reason is that no man, by any possibility, 
can undo what marriage does. They two are one flesh ; 
each has become part of the very existence of the other ; 
and it is simply incredible that a union so profound, so 
interwoven with the very tissue of their being, should 
lie at the mercy of the caprice or the calculations of one 
or other, or of both. Such a union arises from the pro- 
foundest depths of the nature God created, not from 
mean cravings of that nature in its degradation ; and 
like waters springing up from the granite underneath 
the soil, it may suffer stain, but it is in itself free from 
the contamination of the fall. Despite of monkish and 
of Manichean slanders, impure dreams pretending to 


> 


Mark x. I-12] DIVORCE. 267 





especial purity, (:od iss He Who joins together man and 
woman in a bond which “‘no man,” king or prelate, may 
without guilt dissolve. 

Of what followed, St. Mark is content to tell us that 
in the house, the disciples pressed the question further. 
How far did the relaxation which Moses granted 
over-rule the original design? To what extent was 
every individual bound in actual life ? And the answer, 
given by Jesus to guide His own people through all 
time, is clear and unmistakeable. The tie cannot be 
torn asunder without sin. The first marriage holds, 
until actual adultery poisons the pure life in it, and 
man or woman who breaks through its barriers com- 
mits adultery. The Baptist’s judgment of Herod was 
confirmed. 

So Jesus taught. Ponder well that honest unshrink- 
ing grasp of solid detail, which did not overlook the 
physical union whereof is one flesh, that sympathy with 
high and chivalrous devotion forsaking all else for its 
beloved one, that still more spiritual penetration which 
discerned a Divine purpose and a destiny in the corre- 
lation of masculine and feminine gifts, of strength and 
grace, of energy and gentleness, of courage and long- 
suffering—observe with how easy and yet firm a grasp 
Hecombines all these into one overmastering argument 
—remember that when He spoke, the marriage tie was 
being relaxed all over the ancient world, even as god- 
less legislation is to-day relaxing it—reflect that with 
such relaxation came inevitably a blight upon the family, 
resulting in degeneracy and ruin for the nation, while 
every race which learned the lesson of Jesus grew strong 
and pure and happy—and then say whether this was 
only a Judzean peasant, or the Light of the World 
‘ndeed, 


268 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








CHRIST AND LITTLE CHILDREN. 


“ And they brought unto Him little children, that He should touch 
them: anc the disciples rebuked tiem. But when Jesus saw it, He 
was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the little 
children to come unto Me; forbid them not: for of such is the 
kingdom cf God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive 
the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein, 
And He took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying His hands 
upon them.”—MARK x. 13-16 (R.V.). 


Tuis beautiful story gains new loveliness from its con- 
text. The disciples had weighed the advantages and 
disadvantages of marriage, and decided in their calcu- 
lating selfishness, that the prohibition of divorce made 
it “not good for a man to marry.” But Jesus had 
regarded the matter from quite a different position; 
and their saying could only be received by those to 
whom special reasons forbade the marriage tie. It 
was then that the fair blossom and opening flower of 
domestic life, the tenderness and winning grace of 
childhood, appealed to them for a softer judgment. 
Little children (St. Luke says “ babes”) were brought 
to Him to bless, to touch them. It was a remarkable 
sight. He was just departing from Perea on His last 
journey to Jerusalem. The nation was about to abjure 
its King and perish, after having invoked His blood to 
be not on them only, but on their children. But here 
were some at least of the next generation led by 
parents who revered Jesus, to receive His blessing. 
And who shall dare to limit the influence exerted by 
that benediction on their future lives? Is it forgotten 
that this very Perea was the haven of refuge for Jewish 
believers when the wrath fell upon their nation? 
Meanwhile the fresh smile of their unconscious, un- 


Mark x.13-16.] CHRIST AND LITTLE CHILDREN. 269 


Stained, unforeboding infancy met the grave smile of 
the all-conscious, death-boding Man of Sorrows, as 
much purer as it was more profound. 

But the disciples were not melted. They were 
occupied with grave questions. Babes could under- 
stand nothing, and therefore could receive no conscious 
intelligent enlightenment. What then could Jesus do 
for them? Many wise persons are still of quite the 
same opinion. No spiritual influences, they tell us, can 
reach the soul until the brain is capable of drawing 
logical distinctions. A gentle mother may breathe 
softness and love into a child’s nature, or a harsh 
nurse may jar and disturb its temper, until the effects 
are as visible on the plastic face as is the sunshine or 
storm upon the bosom of a lake; but for the grace of 
God there is no opening yet. As if soft and loving 
influences are not themselves a grace of God. As if 
the world were given certain odds in the race, and the 
powers of heaven were handicapped. As if the young 
heart of every child were a place where sin abounds 
(since he is a fallen creature, with an original tendency 
towards evil), but where grace doth not at all abound, 
Such is the unlovely theory. And as long as it pre- 
vails in the Church we need not wonder at the com- 
pensating error of rationalism, denying evil where so 
many of us deny grace. It is the more amiable error 
of the two. Since then the disciples could not believe 
that edification was for babes, they naturally rebuked 
those that brought them. Alas, how often still does 
the beauty and innocence of childhood appeal to men 
in vain, And this is so, because we see not the Divine 
grace, “the kingdom of heaven,” in these. Their 
weakness chafes our impatience, their simplicity irri- 
tates our worldliness, and their touching helplessness 


270 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





and trustfulness do not find in us heart enough for any 
glad response. 

In ancient times they had to pass through the fire to 
Moloch, and since then through other fires : to fashion 
when mothers leave them to the hired kindness of a 
nurse, to selfishness when their want appeals to our 
charities in vain, and to cold dogmatism, which would 
banish them from the baptismal font, as the disciples 
repelled them from the embrace of Jesus. But He was 
moved with indignation, and reiterated, as men do when 
they feel deeply, “Suffer the little children to come 
unto Me; forbid them not.” And He added this con- 
clusive reason, ‘for of such,” of children and childlike 
men, “is the kingdom of God.” 

. What is the meaning of this remarkable assertion ? 
To answer aright, let us return in fancy to the morn- 
ing of our days; let our flesh, and all our primitive 
being, come back to us as those of a little child. 

We were not faultless then. The theological dogma 
of original sin, however unwelcome to many, is in 
harmcny with all experience. Impatience is there, and 
many a childish fault; and graver evils develop as 
surely as life unfolds, just as weeds show themse'ves 
in summer, the germs of which were already mingled 
with the better seed in spring. It is plain to all 
observers that the weeds of human nature are latent 
in the early soil, that this is not pure at the beginning 
of each individual life. Does not our new-fangled 
science explain this fact by telling us that we have still 
in our blood the transmitted influences of our ancestors 
the brutes ? 

But Christ never meant to say that the kingdom of 
heaven was only for the immaculate and stainless. If 
converted men receive it, in spite of many a haunting 





Maik x.13-16.] CHRIST AND LITTLE CHILDREN. 271 
appetite and recurring lust, then the frailties of our 
babes shall not forbid us to believe the blessed assur- 
ance that the kingdom is also theirs. 

How many hindrances to the Divine life fall away 
from us, aS our fancy recalls our childhood. What 
weary and shameful memories, base hopes, tawdry 
splendours, envenomed pleasures, entangling associa- 
ticns vanish, what sins need to be confessed no longer, 
how much evil knowledge fades out that we never now 
shall quite unlearn, which haunts the memory even 
though the conscience be absolved from it. The days 
of our youth are not those evil days, when anything 
within us saith, My soul hath no pleasure in the 
ways of God. 

When we ask to what especial qualities of childhood 
did Jesus attach so great value, two kindred attributes 
are distinctly indicated in Scripture. 

One is humility. The previous chapter showed us 
a little child set in the midst of the emulous disciples, 
whom Christ instructed that the way to be greatest was 
to become like this little child, the least. 

A child is not humble through affectation, it never 
professes nor thinks about humility. But it under- 
stands, however imperfectly, that it is beset by mys- 
terious and perilous forces, which it neither compre- 
hends nor can grapple with. Andso arewe. Therefore 
all its instincts and experiences teach it to submit, to 
seek guidance, not to put its own judgment in competi- 
tion with those of its appointed guides. To them, 
therefore, it clings and is obedient. 

Why is it not so with us? Sadly we also know the 
peril of self-will, the misleading power of appetite and 
passion, the humiliating failures which track the steps 
of seif-assertiyn, the distortion of our judgments, tue 


272 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


feebleness of our wills, the mysteries of life and death 
amid which we grope in vain. Milton anticipated Sir 
Isaac Newton in describing the wisest 


“ As children gathering pebbles on the shore.” - 
Par. Reg., iv. 330. 


And if this be so true in the natural world that 
its sages become as little children, how much more 
in those spiritual realms for which onr faculties 
are still so infantile, and of which our experience is 
so rudimentary. We should all be nearer to the 
kingdom, or greater in it, if we felt our dependence, 
and like the child were content to obey our Guide and 
cling to Him. 

The second childlike quality to which Christ attached 
value was readiness to receive simply. Dependence 
naturally results from humility. Man is proud of 
his independence only because he relies on his own 
powers ; when these are paralysed, as in the sickroom 
or before the judge, he is willing again to become a 
child in the hands of a nurse or of an advocate. In the 
realm of the spirit these natural powers are paralysed, 
Learning cannot resist temptation, nor wealth expiate 
a sin. And therefore, in the spiritual world, we are 
meant to be dependent and receptive. 

Christ taught, in the Sermon on the Mount, that to 
those who asked Him, God would give His Spirit as 
ea’thly parents give good things to their children. 
Here also we are taught to accept, to receive the 
kingdom as little children, not flattering ourselves that 
our own exertions can dispense with the free gift, not 
unwilling to become pensioners of heaven, not dis- 
trustful of the heart which grants, not finding the 
bounties irksome which are prompted by a Fathers’ 





Mark x.13-16.] CHAIST AND LITTLE CHILDREN. 273 








love. What can be more charming in its gracefulness 
than the reception of a favour by an affectionate child. 
His glad and confident enjoyment are a picture of what 
ours might be. 

Since children receive the kingdom, and are a pattern 
for us in doing so, it is clear that they do not possess 
the kingdom as a natural right, but as a gift. But 
since they do receive it, they must surely be capable of 
receiving also that sacrament which is the sign and seal 
of it. It is a startling position indeed which denies 
admission into the visible Church to those of whom is 
the kingdom of God. It is a position taken up only 
because many, who would shrink from any such avowal, 
half-unconsciously believe that God becomes gracious 
to us only when His grace is attracted by skilful 
movements upon our part, by conscious and well- 
instructed efforts, by penitence, faith and orthodoxy. 
But whatever soul is capable of any taint of sin must 
be capable of compensating influences of the Spirit, by 
Whom Jeremiah was sanctified, and the Baptist was 
filled, even before their birth into this world (Jer. i. 5 ; 
Luke i. 15). Christ Himself, in Whom dwelt bodily all 
the fulness of the Godhead, was not therefore incapable 
of the simplicity and dependence of infancy. 

Having taught His disciples this great lesson, Jesus 
let His affections loose. He folded the children in His 
tender and pure embrace, and blessed them much, 
laying His hands on them, instead of merely touching 
them. He blessed them nct because they were baptized. 
But we baptize our children, because all such have 
received the blessing, and are clasped in the arms of 
the Founder of the Church, 


18 


274 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 


See 


THE RICH INQUIRER. 


‘* And as He was going forth into the way, there ran one to Him, 
and kneeled to Him, and asked Him, Good Master, what shal] I do 
that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest 
thou Me good? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest 
the commandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, 
Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour thy father and 
mother. And He said unto him, Master, all these things have I ob- 
served from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and 
said unto him, One thing thou lackest : go, sell whatsoever thou hast, 
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and 
come, follow Me. But his countenance fell at the saying, and he 
went away sorrowful : for he was one that had great possessions.”"— 
Mark x. 17-22 (R.V.). 


THE excitement stirred by our Lord’s teaching must 
often have shown itself in a scene of eagerness like 
this which St. Mark describes so well. The Saviour 
is just ‘ging forth” when one rushes to overtake Him, 
and kneels down to Him, full of the hope of a great 
discovery. He is so frank, so innocent and earnest, as 
to win the love of Jesus. And yet he presently goes 
away, not as he came, but with a gloomy forehead and 
a heavy heart, and doubtless with slow reluctance. 

The authorities were now in such avowed opposi- 
tion that to be Christ's disciple was disgraceful if not 
dangerous to a man of mark. Yet no fear withheld 
this young ruler who had so much to lose; he would 
not come by night, like Nicodemus before the storm 
had gathered which was now so dark; he openly 
avowed his belief in the goodness of the Master, and 
his own ignorance of some great secret which Jesus 
could reveal. 

There is indeed a charming frankness in his bearing, 
so that we admire even his childlike assertion of his 
own virtues, while the heights of a nobility yet un- 


o 


Mark x. 17-22.] THE RICH INQUIRER. 275 
attained are clearly possible for one so dissatisfied, so 
anxious for a higher life, so urgent in his questioning, 
What shall I do? What lack I yet? That is what 
makes the difference between the Pharisee who thanks 
God that he is not as other men, and this youth who 
has kept all the commandments, yet would fain be 
other than he is, and readily confesses that all is not 
enough, that some unknown act still awaits achieve- 
ment. The goodness which thinks itself upon the 
summit wiil never toil much farther. The conscience 
that is really awake cannot be satisfied, but is perplexed 
rather and baffled by the virtues of a dutiful and well- 
ordered life. For a chasm ever yawns between the 
actual and the ideal, what we have done and what we 
fain would do. And a spiritual glory, undefined and 
perhaps undefinable, floats ever before the eyes of 
all men whom the god of this world has not blinded. 
This inquirer honestly thinks himself not far from 
the great attainment ; he expects to reach it by some 
transcendant act, some great deed done, and for this he 
has no doubt of his own prowess, if only he were well 
directed. What shall I do that I may have eternal 
life, not of grace, but as a debt—that I may inherit it ? 
Thus he awaits direction upon the road where heathenism 
and semi-heathen Christianity are still toiling, and all 
who would purchase the gift of God with money or toil 
or merit or bitterness of remorseful tears. 

One easily foresses that the reply of Jesus will dis- 
appoint and humble him, but it startles us to see him 
pointed back to works and to the law of Moses. 

Again, we observe that what this inquirer seeks he 
very earnestly believes Jesus to have attained. And 
it is no mean tribute to the spiritual elevation of our 
Lord, no doubtful indication that amid perils and con- 


276 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





tradictions and on His road to the cross the peace of 
God sat visibly upon His brow, that one so pure and 


yet so keenly aware that his own virtue sufficed not, — 


and that the kingdom of God was yet unattained, should 
kneel in the dust before the Nazarene, and beseech 
this good Master to reveal to him all his questioning. 


It was a strange request, and it was granted in an un- 


looked for way. The demand of the Chaldean tyrant 
that his forgotten dream should be interpreted was not 
so extravagant as this, that the defect in an unknown 
career should be discovered. It was upon a lofty 
pedestal indeed that this ruler placed our Lord. 

And yet his question supplies the clue to that answer 
of Christ which has perplexed so many. The youth is 
seeking for himself a purely human merit, indigenous 
and underived. And the same, of course, is what he 
ascribes to Jesus, to Him who is so far from claiming 
independent human attainment, or professing to be 
what this youth would fain become, that He said, ‘‘ The 
Son can do nothing of Himself. . . I can of Mine own 
self do nothing.” The secret of His human perfection 
is the absolute dependence of His humanity upon God, 
with Whom He is one. No wonder then that He 
repudiates any such goodness as the ruler had in view. 

The Socinian finds quite another meaning in His 
reply, and urges that by these words Jesus denied His 
Deity. There is none good but one, That is God, was 
a reason why He should not be called so. Jesus how- 
ever does not remonstrate absolutely against being called 
good, but against being thus addressed from this ruler’s 
point of view, by one who regards Him as a mere 
teacher and expects to earn the same title for himself. 
And indeed the Socinian who appeals to this text 
grasps a sword by the blade. For if it denied Christ’s 





‘ 
J 
y 


Mark x.17-22] THE RICH INQUIRER. 277 


divinity it must exactly to the same extent deny also 
Christ’s goodness, which he admits. Now it is beyond 
question that Jesus differed from all the saints in the 
serene confidence with which He regarded the moral 
law, from the time when He received the baptism of 
repentance only that He might fulfil all righteousness, 
to the hour when He cried, ‘‘ Why hast Tkou forsaken 
Me ?” and although deserted, claimed God as still His 
God. The saints of to-day were the penitents of 
yesterday. But He has finished the work that was 
given Him to do. He knows that God hears Him 
always, and in Him the Prince of this world hath 
nothing. And yet there is none good but God. Who 
then is He? If this saying does not confess what is 
intolerable to a reverential Socinian, what Strauss and 
Renan shrank from insinuating, what is alien to the 
whole spirit of the Gospels, and assuredly far from 
the mind of the evangelists, then it claims all that His 
Church rejoices to ascribe to Christ. 

Moreover Jesus does not deny even to ordinary men 
the possibility of being “ good.” 

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
bringeth forth good things. Some shail hear at last 
the words,, Well done, good and faithful servant. The 
children of the kingdom are good seed among the tares. 
Clearly His repugnance is not to the epithet, bvt to the 
spirit in which it is bestowed, to the notion that good- 
ness can spring spontaneously from the soil of our 
humanity. But there is nothing here to discourage - 
the highest aspirations of the trustful and dependent 
soul, who looks for more grace. 

The doctrinal importance of this remarkable utter- 
ance is what most affects us, who look back through 
the dust of a hundred controversies, Eut it was very 


278 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


secondary at the time, and what the ruler doubtless 
felt most was a chill sense of repression and perhaps 
despair. It was indeed the death-knell of his false 
hopes. For if only God is good, how can any mortal 
inherit eternal life by a good deed? And Jesus goes on 
to deepen this conviction by words which find a won- 
derful commentary in St. Paul's doctrine of the function 
of the law. It was to prepare men for the gospel by a 
challenge, by revealing the standard of true righteous- 
ess, by saying to all who seek to earn heaven, “ The 
‘man that doeth these things shall live by them.” The 
attempt was sure to end in failure, for, ‘‘ by the law is 
the knowledge of sin.” It was exactly upon this prin- 
ciple that Jesus said ‘“‘Keep the commandments,” spirit- 
ualizing them, as St. Matthew tells us, by adding to 
the injunctions of the second table, “Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour as thyself,” which saying, we know, 
briefly comprehends them all. 

But the ruler knew not how much he loved himself: 
his easy life had met no searching and stern demand 
until now, and his answer has a tone of relief, after 
the ominous words he had first heard. ‘ Master,” and 
he now drops the questionable adjective, “all these 
have I kept from my youth;” these never were so 
burdensome that he should despair; not these, he 
thinks, inspired that unsatisfied longing for some good 
thing yet undone. We pity and perhaps blame the 
shallow answer, and the dull perception which it 
betrayed. But Jesus looked on him and loved him. 
And well it is for us that no eyes fully discern our 
weakness but those which were so often filled with 
sympathetic tears. He sees error more keenly than the 
sharpest critic, but he sees earnestness too. And the 
love which desired all souls was attracted especially by 


Mark x. 17-22.] THE RICH INQUIRER. 279 


one who had felt from his youth up the obligation of 
the moral law, and had not consciously transgressed it. 

This is not the teaching of those vile proverbs which 
declare that wild oats must be sown if one would reap 
good corn, and that the greater the sinner the greater 
will be the saint. 

Nay, even religionists of the sensational school delight 
in the past iniquities of those they honour, not only to 
glorify God for their recovery, nor with the joy which 
is in the presence of the angels over one sinner that 
repenteth, but as if these possess through their former 
wickedness some passport to special service now. Yet 
neither in Scripture nor in the history of the Church 
will it appear that men of licentious revolt against 
known laws have attained to usefulness of the highest 
order. The Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost 
from his mother’s womb. The Apostle of the Gentiles 
was blameless as touching the righteousness of the law. 
And each Testament has a special promise for those 
who seek the Lord early, who seek His kingdom and 
righteousness first. The undefiled are nearest to the 
throne. 

Now mark how endearing, how unlike the stern zeal 
of a propagandist, was Christ's tender and loving gaze; 
and hear the encouraging promise of heavenly treasure, 
and offer of His own companionship, which presently 
softened the severity of His demand; and again, when 
2ll failed, when His followers doubtless scorned the 
deserter, ponder the truthful and compassionate words, 
{{ow hard it is! 

Yet will Christ teach him how far the spirit of the law 
pierces, since the letter has not wrought the knowledge 
of sin. If he loves his neighbour as himself, let his 
needier neighbours receive what he most values. If he 


280 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





loves God supremely, let him be content with treasure 
in the hands of God, and with a discipleship which 
shall ever reveal to him, more and more profoundly, the 
will of God, the true nobility of man, and the way to 
that eternal life he seeks. 

The socialist would justify by this verse a universal 
confiscation. But he forgets that the spirit which 
seizes all is widely different from that which gives all 
freely: that Zacchzeus retained half his goods; that 
Joseph of Arimathea was rich; that the property of 
Ananias was his own, and when he sold it the price 
was in his own power; that St. James warned the rich 
in this world only against trusting in riches instead of 
trusting God, who gave them all richly, for enjoyment, 
although not to be confided in. Soon after this Jesus 
accepted a feast from his friends in Bethany, and 
rebuked Judas who complained that a costly luxury 
had not been sold for the benefit of the poor. Why 
then is his demand now so absolute? It is simply an 
application of his bold universal rule, that every cause 
of stumbling must be sacrificed, be it innocent as hand 
or foot or eye. And affluent indeed would be all the 
charities and missions of the Church in these latter 
days, if the demand were obeyed in cases where it 
really applies, if every luxury which enervates and all 
pomp which intoxicates were sacrificed, if all who know 
that wealth is a snare to them corrected their weakness 
by rigorous discipline, their unfruitfulness by a sharp 
pruning of superfluous frondage. 

The rich man neither remonstrated nor defended 
himself. His self-confidence gave way. He felt 
that what he could not persuade himself to do was a 
“good thing.” And he who came running went away 
sorrowful, and with a face “lowering” like the sky 


Mark x. 23-31.] WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? 281 
which forebodes ‘foul weather.” That is too often 
the issue of such vaunting offers. Yet feeling his 
weakness, and neither resisting nor upbraiding the 
faithfulness which exposes him, doubtless he was long 
disquieted by new desires, a strange sense of failure 
and unworthiness, a clearer vision of that higher life 
which had already haunted his reveries. Henceforward 
he had no choice but to sink to a baser contentment, 
or else rise to a higher self-devotion. Who shall say, 
because he failed to decide then, that he persisted for 
ever in the great refusal? Yet was it a perilous and 
hardening experience, and it was easier henceforward 
to live below his ideal, when once he had turned away 
from Christ. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the 
inner circle of our Lord's immediate followers was then 
for ever closed against him. 


WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? 


«* And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto His disciples. Tlow 
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kinglom of God! 
And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answereth 
again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that 
trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a 
camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into 
the kingdom of God. And they were astonished exceedingly, saying 
unto Him, Then who can be saved? Jesus looking upon them saith, 
With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things are 
possible with God. Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, 
and have followed thee. Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, There is no 
man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father. or 
children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel’s sake, but he shall 
receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and 
sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions ; and 
in the world to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last ; 
and the last first.” —MAarK x. 23-31 (R.V.). 


As the rich man turned away with the arrow in his 
breast, Jesus looked round about on His disciples. 


282 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


The Gospels, and especially St. Mark, often mention 
the gaze of Jesus, and all who know the power of an 
intense and pure nature silently searching others, the 
piercing intuition, the calm judgment which sometimes 
looks out of holy eyes, can well understand the reason. 
Disappointed love was in His look, and that compas- 
sionate protest against harsh judgments which presently 
went on to admit that the necessary demand was hard. 
Some, perhaps, who had begun to scorn the ruler in 
his defeat, were reminded of frailties of their own, and 
had to ask, Shall I next be judged? And one was 
among them, pilfering from the bag what was intended 
for the poor, to whom that look of Christ must have 
been very terrible. Unless we remember Judas, we 
shall not comprehend all the fitness of the repeated 
and earnest warnings of Jesus against covetousness. 
Never was secret sin dealt with so faithfully as his. 
And now Jesus, as He looks around, says, ‘‘ How 
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of God.” But the disciples were amazed. To 
the ancient Jew, from Abraham to Solomon, riches 
appeared to be a sign of the Divine favour, and if the 
pathetic figure of Job reminded him how much sorrow 
might befall the just, yet the story showed even him at 
the end more prosperous than at the beginning. Inthe 
time of Jesus, the chiefs of: their religion were greedily 
using their position as a means of amassing enormous 
fortunes. To be told that wealth was a positive hin- 
drance on the way to God was wonderful indeed, 
When Jesus modified His utterance, it was not to 
‘ correct Himself, like one who had heedlessly gone 
beyond His meaning. His third speech reiterated 
the first, declaring that a manifest and proverbial 
physical impossibility was not so hard as for a rich 


Mark x.25-31.] WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? 283 





man to enter the kingdom of God, here or hereafter, 
But He interposed a saying which both explained the 
first one and enlarged its scope. ‘ Children” He 
begins, like one who pitied their inexperience and 
dealt gently with their perplexities, ‘‘ Children, how 
hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the 
kingdom of God.” And therefore is it hard for all the 
rich, since they must wrestle against this temptation to 
trust in their possessions. It is exactly in this spirit 
that St. James, who quoted Jesus more than any of the 
later writers of Scripture, charges the rich that they 
be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but 
in the living God. Immediately before, Jesus had 
told them how alone the kingdom might be entered, 
even by becoming as little children; lowly, dependent, 
willing to receive all at the hands of a superior. 
Would riches help them to do this? Is it easier to 
pray for daily bread when one has much goods 
laid up for many years? Is it easier to feel that 
God alone can make us drink of true pleasures as 
of a river, when a hundred luxuries and indulgences 
ill us in sloth or allure us into excess? Hereupon 
the disciples perceived what was more alarming still, 
that not alone do rich men trust in riches, but all who 
confound possessions with satisfaction, all who dream 
that to have much is to be blessed, as if property were 
character. They were right. We may follow the 
guidance of Mammon beckoning from afar, with a trust 
as idolatrous as if we held his hand. But who could 
abide a principle so exacting? It was the revelation 
of a new danger, and they were astonished exceedingly, 
saying, Then who can be saved? Again Jesus looked 
upon them, with solemn but reassuring gaze. They 
had learned the secret of the new life, the natural 


284 GOSPEL. OF ST. MARK. 


impossibility throwing us back in helpless appeal to 
the powers of the world to come. ‘“ With men it is 
impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible 
with God.” 

Peter, not easily nor long to be discouraged, now saw 
ground for hope. If the same danger existed for rich 
and poor, then either might be encouraged by having 
surmounted it, and the apostles had done what the rich 
man failed to do—they had left all and followed Jesus. 
The claim has provoked undue censure, as if too much 
were made out of a very trifling sacrifice, a couple 
cf boats and a paltry trade. But the objectors have 
missed the point ; the apostles really broke away from 
the service of the world when they left their nets and 
followed Jesus. Their world was perhaps a narrow 
one, but He Who reckoned two mites a greater offering 
than the total of the gifts of many rich casting in much, 
was unlikely to despise a fisherman or a publican who 
laid all his living upon the altar. The fault, if fault 
there were, lay rather in the satisfaction with which 
Peter contemplates their decision as now irrevocable and 
secure, so that nothing remained except to claim the 
reward, which St. Matthew tells us he very distinct'y 
did. The young man should have had treasure in 
heaven : what then should they have ? 

But in truth, their hardest battles with worldliness 
lay still before them, and he who thought he stood might 
well take heed lest he fell. They would presently unite, 
in censuring a woman's costly gift to Him, for Whom 
they professed to have surrendered all. Peter himself 
would shrink from his Master’s side. And what a satire 
upon this confident claim would it have been, could the 
ceart of Judas then and there have been revealed to 
.hem. 


Mark x. 23-31.] WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? 285 


The answer of our Lord is sufficiently remarkable. 
St. Matthew tells how frankly and fully He acknowledged 
their collective services, and what a large reward He 
promised, when they should sit with Him on thrones, 
judging their nation. So far was that generous heart 
from weighing their losses in a worldly scale, or criti- 
cizing the form of a demand which was not all un- 
reasonable. 

But St. Mark lays exclusive stress upon other and 
sobering considerations, which also St. Matthew has 
recorded. 

There is a certain tone ef egoism in the words, “ Lo, 
we ... whatshall we have?” And Jesus corrects this 
in the gentlest way, by laying down such a general rule 
as implies that many others will do the same, “ there is 
no man” whose self sacrifice shall go without its reward. 

Secondary and lower motives begin to mingle with 
the generous ardour of self-sacrifice as soon as it is 
careful to record its losses, and inquire about its wages. 
Such motives are not absolutely forbidden, but they must 
never push into the foremost place. The crown of glory 
animated and sustained St. Paul, but it was for Christ, 
and not for this that he suffered the loss of all things. 

Jesus accordingly demands purity of motive. The 
sacrifice must not be for ambition, even with aspirations 
prolonged across the frontiers of eternity: it must be 
altogether ‘‘for My sake and for the gospel’s sake.” 
And here we observe once more the portentous demand 
of Christ's person upon His followers. They are ser- 
vants of no ethical or theological system, however lofty. 
Christ does not regard Himself and them, as alike 
devcted to some cause above and external to them all. 
To Him they are to be consecrated, and to the gospel, 
which, as we have seen, is the story of His Life, Death 


226 GOSIEL OF ST. MARK, 

and Resurrection. For Him they are to break the 
dearest and strongest of earthly ties. He had just pro- 
claimed how indissoluble was the marriage bond. No 
man should sever those whom God had joined. But St. 
Luke informs us that to forsake even a wife for Christ's 
sake, was a deed worthy of being rewarded an hundred- 
fold. Nor does He mention any higher being in whose 
name the sacrifice is demanded. Now this is at least 
implicitly the view of His own personality, which some 
profess to find only in St John. 

Again, there was perhaps an undertone of complaint 
in Peter’s question, as if no compensation for all their 
sacrifices were hitherto bestowed. What should their 
compensation be? But Christ declares that losses en- 
dured for Him are abundantly repaid on earth, in this 
present time, and even amid the fires of persecution. 
Houses and lands are replaced by the consciousness of in- 
violable shelter and inexhaustible provision. “Whither 
wilt thou betake thyself to find covert ?” asks the menac- 
ing cardinal; but Luther answers, ‘‘ Under the heaven 
of God.” And if dearest friends be estranged, or of 
necessity abandoned, then, in such times of high attain- 
ment and strong spiritual insight, membership in the 
Divine family is felt to be no unreal tie, and earthly 
relationships are well recovered in the vast fraternity 
of souls. Brethren, and sisters, and mothers, are thus 
restored an hundredfold ; but although a father is also 
lost, we do not hear that a hundred fathers shall be 
given back, for in the spiritual family that place is 
reserved for One. 

Lastly, Jesus reminded them that the race was not 
yet over ; that many first shall be last and the last first. 
We know how Judas by transgression fell, and how the 
persecuting Saul became not a whit behind the very 


— 


Mark x. 35-40.] CHRIST’S CUP AND BAPTISM. 287 


chiefest apostle. But this word remains for the warning 
and incitement of all Christians, even unto the end of 
the world. There are “ many” such. 

Next after this warning, comes yet another prediction 
of His own suffering, with added circumstances of 
horror. Would they who were now first remain faithe 
ful? or should another take their bishopric ? 

With a darkening heart Judas heard, and made his 
choice. 


[Mark x. 32-34. See Marx viii. 31, p. 219.] 


CHRIST'S CUP AND BAPTISM. 


*¢ And there came near unto him James and John,'the sons of Zebedee, 
saying unto him, Master, we would that Thou shouldst do for us what- 
soever we shall ask of Thee. And He said unto them, What would ye 
I should do for you ? And they said unto Him, Grant unto us that we may 
sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on 7%y left hand, in Thy glory. But 
Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink 
the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am 
baptized with? And they said unto Him, We are able. And Jesus said 
unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink ; and with the baptism 
that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on My right 
hand or on My left hand is not Mine to give : but 2¢ 7s for them for whom 
it hath been prepared.”—MARK x. 35-40 (R.V.). 


WE learn from St. Matthew that Salome was associated 
with her sons, and was indeed the chief speaker in the 
earlier part of this incident. 

And her request has commonly been regarded as the 
mean and shortsighted intrigue of an ambitious woman, 
recklessly snatching at an advantage for her family, and 
unconscious of the stern and steep road to honour in 
the kingdom of Jesus. 

Nor can we deny that her prayer was somewhat pre- 
sumptuous, or that it was especially unbecoming to aim 


2&8 GCSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





at entangling her Lord in a blindfold promise, desiring 
Him to do something undefined, ““ whatsoever we shall 
ask of Thee.” Jesus was too discreet to answer other- 
wise than, ‘‘What would ye that I should do for you?” 
And when they asked for the chief seats in the glory 
that was yet to be their Master’s, no wonder that the 
Ten hearing of it, had indignation. But Christ's an- 
swer, and the gentle manner in which He explains His 
refusal, when a sharp rebuke is what we would expect 
to read, alike suggest that there may have been some 
softening, half-justifying. circumstance. And this we 
find in the period at which the daring request was made. 

It was on the road, during the last journey, when a 
panic had seized the company ; and our Lord, appar- 
ently out of the strong craving for sympathy which 
possesses the noblest souls, had once more told the 
Twelve what insults and cruel sufferings lay before Him. 
It was a time for deep searching of hearts, for the 
craven to go back and walk no more with Him, and for 
the traitor to think of making His own peace, at any 
price, with His Master’s foes. 

But this dauntless woman could see the clear sky 
beyond the storm. Her sons shall be loyal, and win 
the prize, whatever be the hazard, and however long 
the struggle.’ 

Ignorant and rash she may have been, but it was no 
base ambition which chose such a moment to declare 
its unshaken ardour, and claim distinction in the king- 
com for which so much must be endured. 

And when the stern price was plainly stated, she and 
ler children were not startled, they conceived them- 
selves able for the baptism and the cup; and little as 
they dreamed of the coldness of the waters, and the 
bitterness of the draught, yet Jesus did not declare 


‘aie 


Mark x. 35-40.] CHR/S7T’S CUP AND BAPTISM. 286 


them to be deceived. He said, Ye shall indeed share 
these. \ 

Nor can we doubt that their faith and loyalty re- 
freshed His soul amid so much that was sad and self- 
ish. He knew indeed on what a dreadful seat He was 
soon to claim His kingdom, and who should sit upon 
His right hand and His left. These could not follow 
Him now, but they should follow Him hereafter — 
one by the brief pang of the earliest apostolic martyr- 
dom, and the other by the longest and sorest expe- 
rience of that faithless and perverse generation. 

I. Very significant is the test of worth which Jesus 
propounds to them: not successful service but en- 
durance; not the activé but the passive graces. It is 
not our test, except in a few brilliant and conspicuous 
martyrdoms. The Church, like the world, has crowns 
for learning, eloquence, energy ; it applauds the force 
by which great things are done. The reformer who 
abolishes an abuse, the scholar who defends a doctrine, 
the orator who sways a multitude, and the missionary 
who adds a new tribe to Christendom,—all these are 
sure of honour. Our loudest plaudits are not for sim- 
ple men and women, but for high station, genius, and 
success. But the Lord looketh upon the heart, not the 
brain or the hand; He values the worker, not the work ; 
the love, not the achievement. And, therefore, one of 
the tests He constantly applied was this, the capability 
for noble endurance. We ourselves, in our saner 
moments, can judge whether it demands more grace 
to refute a heretic, or to sustain the long inglorious 
agonies of some disease which slowly gnaws away the 
heart of life. And doubtless among the heroes for whom 
Christ is twining immortal garlands, there is many a 
pale and shattered creature, nerveless and unstrung, 

19 


290 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





tossing on a mean bed, breathing in imperfect English 
loftier praises than many an anthem which resounds 
through cathedral arches, and laying on the altar of 
burnt sacrifice all he has, even his poor frame itself, to 
be racked and tortured without a murmur. Culture has 
never heightened his forehead nor refined his face: we 
look at him, but little dream what the angels see, or 
how perhaps because of such an one the great places 
which Salome sought were not Christ's to give away 
except only to them for whom it was prepared. For 
these, at last, the reward shall be His to give, as He 
said, ‘‘To him that overcometh will I give to sit down 
with Me upon My throne.” 

2. Significant also are the phrases by which Christ 
expressed the sufferings of His people. Some, which 
it is possible to escape, are voluntarily accepted for 
Christ's: sake, as when the Virgin mother bowed her head 
to slander and scorn, and said, ‘ Behold the servant of 
the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word.” Such 
sufferings are a cup deliberately raised by one’s own 
hand to the reluctant lips. Into other sufferings we 
are plunged: they are inevitable. Malice, ill-health, or 
bereavement plies the scourge; they come on us like 
the rush of billows in a storm; they are a deep and 
dreadful baptism. Or we may say that some woes are 
external, visible, we are seen to be submerged in them ; 
but others are like the secret ingredients of a bitter 
draught, which the lips know, but the eye of the 
bystander cannot analyze. But there is One Who 
knows and rewards; even the Man of Sorrows Who 
said, The cup which My heavenly Father giveth, shall 
I not drink it ? 

Now it is this standard of excellence, announced by 
Jesus, which shall give high place to many of the poor 


Mark x. 35-40.] CHRIST’S CUP AND RAPTISM. 291 








and ignorant and weak, when rank shall perish, when 

tongues shall cease, and when our knowledge, in the 
laze of new revelations, shall utterly vanish away, not 

quenched, but absorbed like the starlight at noon. 

3. We observe again that men are not said to drink 
of another cup as bitter, or to be baptized in other 
waters as chill, as tried their Master; but to share 
His very baptism and His cup. Not that we can add 
anything to His all-sufficient sacrifice. Our goodness 
extendeth not to God. But Christ’s work availed not 
only to reconcile us to the Father, but also to elevate 
and consecrate sufferings which would otherwise have 
been penal and degrading. Accepting our sorrows in 
the grace of Christ, and receiving Him into our hearts, 
then our sufferings fill up that which is lacking of the 
afflictions of Christ (Col. i. 24), and at the last He will 
say, when the glories of heaven are as a robe around 
Him, “I was hungry, naked, sick, and in prison in the 
person of the least of these.” 

Hence it is that a special nearness to God has ever 
been felt in holy sorrow, and in the pain of hearts 
which, amid all clamours and tumults of the world, 
are hushed and calmed by the example of Him Who 
was led as a lamb to the slaughter. 

And thus they are not wrong who speak of the 
Sacrament of Sorrow, for Jesus, in this passage, applies 
to it the language of both sacraments. 

It is a harmless superstition even at the worst which 
brings to the baptism of many noble houses water from 
the stream where Jesus was baptized by John. But 
here we read of another and a dread baptism, conse- 
crated by the fellowship of Christ, in depths which 
plummet never sounded, and into which the neophyte 
goes down sustained by no mortal hand. 


292 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








Here is also the communion of an awfulcup. No 
human minister sets it in our trembling hand; no 
human voice asks, ‘‘ Are ye able to drink the cup that I 
drink ?” Our lips grow pale, and our blood is chill; 
but faith responds, ‘‘We are able.” And the tender 
and pitying vcice of our Master, too loving to spare 
one necessary pang, responds with the word of doom ; 
* The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the 
baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized.” 
Even so: it is enough for the servant that he be as his 
Master. 


THE LAW OF GREATNESS 


“ And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with indigna- 
tion concerning James and John. And Jesus called them to Him, and 
saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over 
the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority 
over them. But it is not so among you: but whosoever would become 
great among you, shall be your minister : and whosoever would be first 
among you, shal] be servant of all. For verily the Son of man came 
not to be,ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom 
for many.”—MakkK x. 41-45 (R.V.). 


WuEen the Ten heard that James and John had asked 
for the chief places in the kingdom, they proved, by 
their indignation, that they also nourished the same 
ambitious desires which they condemned. But Jesus 
called them to Him, for it was not there that angry 
passions had broken out. And happy are they who 
hear and obey His summons to approach, when, 
removed from His purifying gaze by carelessness or 
wilfulness, ambition and anger begin to excite their 
hearts. 

Now Jesus addressed them as bring aware of their 
hidden emulation. And His treatment of it is remark- 





Mark x. 41-45.] 7HE LAW OF GREATNESS. 293 





able. He neither condemns, nor praises it, but simply 
teaches them what Christian greatness means, aitd the 
conditions on which it may be won. 

The greatness of the world is measured by authority 
and lordliness. Even there it is an uncertain test; for 
the most real power is often wielded by some anony- 
mous thinker, or by some crafty intriguer, content with 
the substance of authority while his puppet enjoys the 
trappings. Something of this may perhaps be detected 
in the words, ‘‘ They which are accounted te rule over 
the Gentiles lord it over them.” And it is certain that 
‘their great ones exercise authority over them.” But 
the Divine greatness is a meek and gentle influence. 
To minister to the Church is better than to command it, 
and whoever desires to be the chief must become the 
servant of all. Thus shall whatever is vainglorious 
and egoistic in our ambition defeat itself; the more 
one struggles to be great the more he is disqualified: 
even benefits rendered to others with this object will 
not really be service done for them but for self; nor 
will any calculated assumption of humility help one to 
become indeed the least, being but a subtle assertion 
that he is great, and like the last place in an ecclesiastical 
procession, when occupied in a self-conscious spirit. 
And thus it comes to pass that the Church knows very 
indistinctly who are its greatest sons. As the gift of 
two mites by the widow was greater than that of large 
sums by the rich, so a small service done in the spirit 
ef perfect self-effacement,—a service which thought 
neither of its merit nor of its reward, but only of a 
brother’s need, shall be more in the day of reckoning 
than sacrifices which are celebrated by the historians 
and sung by the poets of the Church. For it may avail 
nothing to give all my goods to feed the poor, and my 


204 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
body to be burned; while a cup of cold water, rendered 
by a loyal hand, shall in no wise lose its reward, 

Thus Jesus throws open to all men a competition which 
has no charms for flesh and blood. And as He spoke of 
the entry upon His service, bearing a cross, as being the 
following of Himself, so He teaches us, that the great- 
ness of lowliness, to which we are called, is His own 
greatness. ‘For verily the Son cf Man came not to 
be ministered unto but to minister.” Not here, not in 
this tarnished and faded world, would He Who was 
from everlasting with the Father have sought His own 
ease or honour. But the physician came to them that 
were sick, and the good Shepherd followed His lost 
sheep until He found it. Now thi8 comparison proves 
that we also are to carry forward the same restoring 
work, or else we might infer that, because He came 
to minister to us, we may accept ministration with a 
good heart. It is not so. We are the light and the 
salt of the earth, and must suffer with Him that we 
may also be glorified together. 

But He added another memorable phrase. He came 
“to give His life a ransom in exchange for many.” 
It is not a question, therefore, of the inspiring example 
of His life. Something has been forfeited which must 
be redeemed, and Christ has paid the price. Nor is this 
done only on behalf of many, but in exchange for them. 

So then the crucifixion is not a sad incident in a 
great career; it 1s the mark towards which Jesus 
moved, the power by which He redeemed the world. 

Surely, we recognise here the echo of the prophet’s 
words, “ Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin 
... by His knowledge shall My righteous servant 
justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities ” 
(Isa. lili. 10, 1). 








Mark x. 46-52.] BARTIMAUS. 295 


The elaborated doctrine of the atonement may not 
perhaps be here, much less the subtleties of theologians 
who have, to their own satisfaction, known the mind of 
the Almighty to perfection. But it is beyond reason- 
able controversy that in this verse Jesus declared that 
His sufferings were vicarious, and endured in the 
sinners’ stead. 


BARTIMALUS. 


** And they come to Jericho : and as Ele went out from Jericho, with 
His disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timzeus, Bartimzus, a 
blind beggar, was sitting by the way side. And when he heard that it 
was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, Thou son 
of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, that he should 
hold his peace: but he cried out the more a great deal, Thou son of 
David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and said, Call ye 
him. And they called the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good 
cheer; rise, He calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, 
sprang up, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered him, and said, 
What wilt thou that I should do untu thee? And the blind man said 
unto Him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto 
him, Go thy way ; thy faith hath made thee whole. And straightway 
he received his sight, and followed Him in the way.”—MarK x. 46-52 
(R.V.). 


THERE is no miracle in the Gospels of which the 
accounts are so hard to reconcile as those of the 
healing of the blind at Jericho. 

It is a small thing that St. Matthew mentions two 
blind men, while St. Mark and St. Luke are only aware 
of one. The same is true of the demoniacs at Gadara, 
and if is easily understood that only an eyewitness 
show] remember the obscure comrade of a remarkable 
and snergetic man, who would have spread far and 
wide the particulars of his own cure. The fierce and 
dang«rous demoniac of Gadara was just such a man, 
and there is ample evidence of energy and vehemence 


296 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





in the brief account of Bartimzeus. What is really 
perplexing is that St. Luke places the miracle at the 
entrance to Jericho, but St. Matthew and St. Mark, 
as Jesus came out of it. Itis too forced and violent 
a theory which speaks of an old and a new town, so 
close together that one was entered and the other left 
at the same time. 

It is possible that there were two events, and the 
success of one sufferer at the entrance to the town led 
others to use the same importunities at the exit. And 
this would not be much more remarkable than the two 
miracles of the loaves, or the two miraculous draughts 
of fish. It is also possible, though unlikely, that the 
same supplicant who began his(appeals without success 
when Jesus entered, resumed His entreaties, with 
a comrade, at the gate by which He left. 

Such difficulties exist in all the best authenticated 
histories : discrepancies of the kind arise continually 
between the evidence of the most trustworthy witnesses 
in courts of justice. And the student who is humble 
as well as devout will not shut his eyes against facts, 
merely because they are perplexing, but will remember 
that they do nothing to shake the solid narrative itself. 

As we read St. Mark’s account, we are struck by the 
vividness of the whole picture, and especially by the 
robust personality of the blind man. The scene is 
neither Jerusalem, the city of the Pharisees nor 
Galilee, where they have persistently sapped the 
popularity of Jesus. Eastward of the Jordan, He has 
spent the last peaceful and successful weeks of His 
brief and stormy career, and Jericho lies upon the 
borders ef that friendly district. Accordingly something 
is here of the old enthusiasm : a great multitude moves 
along with His disciples to the gates, and the rushing 








Mark x. 46-52.] BARTIMAUS., 297 
concourse excites the curiosity of the blind son of 
Timzus. So does many a religious movement lead to 
inquiry and explanation far and wide. But when he, 
sitting by the way, and unable to follow, knows that 
the great Healer is at hand, but only in passing, and 
for a moment, his interest suddenly becomes personal 
and ardent, and ‘‘he began to cry out” (the expression 
implies that his supplication, beginning as the crowd 
drew near, was not one utterance but a prolonged 
appeal), “and to say, Jesus, Thou Son of David, 
have mercy on me.” To the crowd his outcry seemed 
to be only an intrusion upon One Who was too rapt, 
too heavenly, to be disturbed by the sorrows of a blind 
beggar. But that was not the view of Bartimzus, 
whose personal affliction gave him the keenest interest 
in those verses of the Old Testament which spoke of 
opening the blind eyes. If he did not understand 
their exact force as prophecies, at least they satisfied 
him that his petition could not be an insult to the 
great Prophet of Whom just such actions were told, for 
Whose visit he had often sighed, and Who was now 
fast going by, perhaps for ever. The picture is one of 
great eagerness, bearing up against great discourage- 
ment. We catch the spirit of the man as he inquires 
what the multitude means, as the epithet of his in- 
formants, Jesus of Nazareth, changes on his lips into 
Jesus, Thou Son of David, as he persists, without 
any vision of Christ to encourage him, and amid the 
rebukes of many, in crying out the more a great 
deal, although pain is deepening every moment in his 
accents, and he will presently need cheering. The 
ear of Jesus is quick for such a call, and He stops. 
He dces not raise His own voice to summon him, 
but teaches a lesson of humanity to those who would 


298 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 
fain have silenced the appeal of anguish, and says, Call 
ye him. And they obey with a courtier-like change of 
tone, saying, Be of good cheer, rise, He calleth thee. 
And Bartimzeus cannot endure even the slight hindrance 
of his loose garment, but flings it aside, and rises and 
comes to Jesus, a pattern of the importunity which 
prays and never faints, which perseveres amid all 
discouragement, which adverse public opinion cannot 
hinder. And the Lord asks of him almost exactly the 
same question as recently of James,and John, What 
wilt thou that I should do for thee? But in his reply 
there is no aspiring pride: misery knows how precious 
are the common gifts, the every-day blessings which we 
hardly pause to think about g~and he replies, Rabboni, 
that I may receive my sight. It is a glad and eager 
answer. Many a petition he had urged in vain; and 
many a small favour had been discourteously bestowed ; 
but Jesus, Whose tenderness loves to commend while 
He blesses, shares with him, so to speak, the glory of 
his healing, as He answers, Go thy way, thy faith hath 
made thee whole. By thus fixing his attention upon 
his own part in the miracle, so utterly worthless as a 
contribution, but so indispensable as a condition, Jesus 
taught him to exercise hereafter the same gift of faith. 
“Go thy way,” He said. And Bartimzeus “ followed 
Him on the road.” Happy is that man whose eyes 
are open to discern, and his heart prompt to follow, the 
print of those holy feet. 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE TRIUMPHANT ENTRY. 


“ And when they draw nigh unto Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and 
Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, He sendeth two of His disciples, and 
saith unto them, Go your way into the vi lage that is over against you: 
and straightway as ye enter into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon no 
man ever yet sat; loose him, and bring him. And if any one say unto 
you, Why do yethis? say ye, The Lord hath need of him; and str:ight- 
way He will send him back hither. And they went away, and found a 
colt tied at the door without in the open street; and they loose him. 
And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, 
loosing the colt? And they said unto them even as Jesus had said: 
and they let them go. And they bring the colt unto Jesus, and cast 
on him their garments ; and He sat upon him. And mauyspread their 
garments upon the way ; and others branches, which they had cut from 
the fields. And they that went before, and they that foilowed, cried, 
Hosanna: Blessed zs He that cometh in the name of the Lord : Blessed 
ts the kingdom that cometh, the 4¢ngdom of our father David: Hosanna 
in the highest. And He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and 
when He had looked round about upon all things, it being now even- 
tide, He went out unto Bethany with the twelve.".—MARK xi. I-II 
(R.V.). 


ESUS had now come near to Jerusalem, into what 
was possibly the sacred district of Bethphage, of 
which, in that case, Bethany was the border village. 

Not without pausing here (as we learn from the fourth 
Gospel), yet as the next step forward, He sent two of 
His disciples to untie and bring back an ass, which was 
fastened with her colt at a spot which He minutely 
described. Unless they were challenged they should 


300 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





simply bring the animals away; but if any one remonstra- 
ted, they should answer, “ The Lord hath need of them,” 
and thereupon the owner would not only acquiesce, 
but send them. In fact they are to make a requisition, 
such as the State often institutes for horses and cattle 
during a campaign, when private rights must give way 
to a national exigency. And this masterful demand, 
this abrupt and decisive rejoinder to a natural objection, 
not arguing nor requesting, but demanding, this title 
which they are bidden to give to Jesus, by which, 
standing thus alone, He is rarely described in Scripture 
(chiefly in the later Epistles, when the remembrance of 
His earthly stylé gave place to the influence of habitual 
adoration), all this preliminary arrangement makes us 
conscious of a change of tone, of royalty issuing its 
mandates, and claiming its rights. But what a claim, 
what a requisition, when He takes the title of Jehovah, 
and yet announces His need of the colt of an ass. Itis 
indeed the lowliest of all memorable processions which 
He plans, and yet, in its very humility, it appeals to 
ancient prophecy, and says unto Zion that her King 
cometh unto her. The monarchs of the East and the 
captains of the West might ride upon horses as for war, 
but the King of Sion should come unto her meek, and 
sitting upon an ass, upon a colt, the foal of an ass. 
Yet there is fitness and dignity in the use of “a colt 
whereon never man sat,” and it reminds us of other 
facts, such as that He was the firstborn of a virgin 
mother, and rested in a tomb which corruption had 
never soiled. 

Thus He comes forth, the gentlest of the mighty, 
with no swords gleaming around to guard Him, or to 
smite the foreigner who tramples Israel, or the worse 
foes of her own household, Men who will follow such 


Mark xi. 1-11.] ZHE TRIUJiPFHANT ENTRY. 308 


a King must lay aside their vain and earthly ambitions, 
and awake to the truth that spiritual powers are grander 
than any which violence ever grasped. But men who 
will not follow Him shall some day learn the same lesson, 
perhaps in the crash of their reeling commonwealth, 
perhaps not until the armies of heaven follow Him, as 
He goes forth, riding now upon a white horse, crowned 
with many diadems, smiting the nations with a, sharp 
sword, and ruling them with an iron rod. 

Lowly though His procession was, yet it was palpably 
a royal one. When Jehu was proclaimed king at 
Ramoth-Gilead, the captains hastened to make him sit 
upon the garments of every one of them, expreszing 
by this national symbol their subjection. Somewhat 
the same feeling is in the famous anecdote of Sir Walter 
Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth. And thus the disciples 
who brought the ass cast on him their garments, and 
Jesus sat thereon, and many spread their garments in 
the way. Others strewed the road with branches; and 
as they went they cried aloud certain verses of that great 
song of triumph, which told how the nations, swarming 
like bees, were quenched like the light fire of thorns, 
how the right hand of the Lord did valiantly, how the 
gates of righteousness should be thrown open for the 
righteous, and, more significant still, how the stone 
which the builders rejected should become the head- 
stone of the corner. Often had Jesus quoted this 
saying when reproached by the unbelief of the rulers, 
and now the people rejoiced and were glad in it, as 
they sang of His salvation, saying, ‘“‘ Hosanna, blessed 
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, Blessed is 
the kingdom that cometh, the Kingdom of our father 
David, Hosanna in the highest.” 

Such is the narrative as it impressed St. Mark. For 


302 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


his purpose it mattered nothing that Jerusalem took 
no part in the rejoicings, but was perplexed, and said, 
Who is this? or that, when confronted by this some- 
what scornful and affected ignorance of the capital, the 
voice of Galilee grew weak, and proclaimed no longer 
the advent of the kingdom of David, but only Jesus, the 
prophet of Nazareth; or that the Pharisees in the 
temple avowed their disapproval, while contemptuously 
ignoring the Galilean multitude, by inviting Him to 
reprove some children. | What concerned St. Mark 
was that now, at last, Jesus openly and practically 
assumed rank as a monarch, allowed men to proclaim 
the advent of His kingdom, and proceeded to exercise 
its rights by calling for the surrender of property, and 
by cleansing the temple with a scourge. The same 
avowal of kingship is almost all that he has cared to 
record of the remarkable scene before His Roman 
judge. 

After this heroic fashion did Jesus present Himself 
to die. Without a misleading hope, conscious of the 
hollowness of His seeming popularity, weeping for the 
impending ruin of the glorious city whose walls were 
ringing with His praise, and predicting the murderous 
triumph of the crafty faction which appears so help- 
less, He not only refuses to recede or compromise, 
but does not hesitate to advance His claims in a 
manner entirely new, and to defy the utmost animosity 
of those who still rejected Him. 

After such a scene there could be no middle course 
between crushing Him, and bowing to Him. He was 
no longer a Teacher of doctrines, however revolutionary, 
but an Aspirant to practical authority, Who must be 
dealt with practically. 

There was evidence also of His intention to proceed 


Mark xi. 12-14, 20-25.] THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 303 





upon this new line, when He entered into the temple, 
investigated its glaring abuses, and only left it for the 
moment because it was now eventide. To-morrow would 
show more of His designs. 

Jesus is still, and in this world, King. And it will 
hereafter avail us nothir g to have received His doctrine, 
unless we have taken His yoke. 


THE BARREN FIG-TREEZ, 


** And on the morrow, when they were come out from Bethany, He 
hungered. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came, if 
haply He might find anything thereon: and when He came toit, He 
found nothing but leaves ; for it was not the season of figs. And He 
answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit from thee henceforward 
for ever. And His disciples heard it.” 

‘© And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig-tree 
withered away from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith 
unto Him, Rabbi, behold, the fig-tree which Thou cursedst is withered 
away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. 
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be 
‘thou taken up and cast into the sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart, 
but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. 
Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, 
believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them. And 
whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; 
that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your tres- 
passes.” —MARK xi, 12-14, 20-25 (R.V.). 


No sooner has Jesus claimed His kingdom, than He 
performs His first and only miracle of judgment. And 
it is certain that no mortal, informed that such a 
miracle was impending, could have guessed where the 
blow would fall. In this miracle an element is pre- 
dominant which exists in all, since it is wrought as an 
acted dramatized parable, not for any physical advan- 
tage, but wholly for the instruction which it conveys. 
Jesus hungered at the very outset of a day of toil, as 


304 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








He came out from Bethany. And this was not due to 
poverty, since the disciples there had recently made 
Him a great feast, but to His own absorbing ardour, 
The zeal of God's house, which He had seen polluted 
and was about to cleanse, had either left Him indifferent 
to food until the keen air of morning aroused the sense 
of need, or else it had detained Him, all night long, in 
prayer and meditation out of doors. As He walks, He 
sees afar off a lonely fig-tree covered with leaves, and 
comes if haply He might find anything thereon. It is 
true that figs would not be in season for two months, 
but yet theycought to present themselves before the 
leaves did ; and since the tree was precocious in the 
show and profusion of luxuriance, it ought to bear 
early figs. If it failed, it would at least point a power- 
ful moral; and, therefore, when only leaves appeared 
upon it, Jesus cursed it with perpetual barrenness, and 
passed on. Not in the dusk of that evening as they 
returned, but when they passed by again in the morning 
the blight was manifest, the tree was withered from its 
very roots. 

It is complained that by this act Jesus deprived some 
one of his property. But the same retributive justice 
of which this was an expression was preparing to 
blight, presently, all the possessions of all the nation. 
Was this unjust ? And of the numberless trees that 
are blasted year by year, why should the loss of this 
one only be resented ? Every physical injury must be 
intended to further some spiritual end; but it is not 
often that the purpose is so clear, and the lesson so 
distinctly learned. 

Others blame our Lord’s word of sentence, because 
a tree, not being a moral agent, ought not to be 
punished. It is an obvious rejoinder that neither could 


Mark xi. 12-14, 20-25.] ZHE BARREN FIG-TREE. 305, 


it sue: pain; that the whole action is symbolic; and 
that we ourselves justify the Saviour’s method of ex- 
pression as often as we call one tree “good” and 
another “bad,” and say that a third “ ought” to bear 
fruit, while not much could be “expected of” a fourth. 
It should rather be observed that in this word of 
sentence Jesus revealed His tenderness. It would 
have Ecen a false and cruel kindness never to work 
any miracle except of compassion, and thus to suggest 
the inference that He could never strike, whereas indeed, 
before that generation passed away, He would break 
His enemies in pieces like a potter’s vessel. 

Yct He came not to destroy men’s lives but to save 
them. And, therefore, while showing Himself neither 
indifferent nor powerless against barren and fa'se pre- 
tensiois, He did this only cece, and then only by a 
sign wrought upon an unsenticnt tree. 

Retribution fell upon it nct for its lack of fruit, since 
at thut season it shared this with all its tribe, but for 
ostentatious, much-prefessing fruitlessness. And thus 
it pointed with dread significance to the condition of 
Ged’s own people, differing from Greece and Rome and 
Syria, not in the want of fruit, but in the show of luxu- 
riant frondage, in the expectation it excited and mocked. 
When the season of the world’s fruitfulness was yet 
remote, only Israel put forth leaves, and made professions 
which were not fulfilled. And the permanent warning 
of the miracle is not for heathen men and races, but 
for Christians who have a name to live, and who are 
called to bear fruit unto God. 

While the disciples marvelled at the sudden fulfilment 
of its sentence, they could not have forgotten the 
parable of a fig-tree in the vineyard, on which care 
and labour were lavished, but which must be destroyed 

20 


306 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


after one year of respite if it continued to be a cumberer 
of the ground. 

And Jesus drove the lesson home. He pointed to 
“this mourtain” full in front, with the gold and marble 
of the temple sparkling like a diadem upon its brow, 
and declared that faith is not only able to smite barren- 
ness with death, but to remove into the midst of the 
sea, to plant among the wild and stormswept races of 
the immeasurable pagan world, the glory and privilege 
of the realized presence of the Lord. To do this was 
the purpose of God, hinted by many a prophet, and 
clearly announced By Christ Himself. But its accom- 
plishment was left to His followers, who should succeed 
in exact proportion to the union of their will and that 
of God, so that the condition of that moral miracle, 
transcending all others in marvel and in efficacy, was 
simple faith. 

And the same rule covers all the exigencies of life. 
One who truly relies on God, whose mind and will are 
attuned to those of the Eternal, cannot be selfish, or 
vindictive, or presumptuous. As far as we rise to the 
grandeur of this condition we enter into the Omni- 
potence of God, and no limit need be imposed upon the 
prevalence of really and utterly believing prayer. The 
wishes that ought to be refused will vanish as we attain 
that eminence, like the hoar frost of morning as the 
sun grows strong. 

To this promise Jesus added a precept, the admirable 
suitability of which is not at first apparent. Most sims 
are made evident to the conscience in the act of prayer. 
Drawing nigh to God, we feel our unfitness to be there, 
we are made conscious of what He frowns upon, and 
if we have such faith as Jesus spoke of, we at once 
resign what would grieve the Spirit of adoption. No 


Mark xi 15-19.] CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. 307 








saint is ignorant of the convicting power of prayer. 
But it is not of necessity so with resentment for real 
grievances. We may think we do well to be angry. 
We may confound our selfish fire with the pure flame 
of holy zeal, and begin, with confidence enough, yet not 
with the mind of Christ, to remove mountains, not because 
they impede a holy cause, but because they throw a 
shadow upon our own field) And, therefore, Jesus 
reminds us that not only wonder-working faith, but 
even the forgiveness of our sins requires from us the 
forgiveness of our brother. This saying is the clearest 
proof of how much is implied in a truly undoubting 
heart. And this promise is the sternest rebuke of the 
Church, endorsed with such ample powers, and yet after 
nineteen centuries confronted by an unconverted world. 


THE SECOND CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. 


** And they come to Jerusalem: and He entered into the temple, 
and began to cast out them that sold and them that bought in the 
temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats 
of them that sold the doves; and He would not suffer that any man 
should carry a vessel through the temple. And He taught, and said 
unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer 
for all the nations? but ye have made it a den of robbers. And the 
chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might 
destrey Him : for they feared Him, forall the multitude was astonished 
at His teaching. And every evening He went forth out of the city.”— 
MARK xi. 15-19. (R.V.). 


Wir the authority of yesterday’s triumph still about 
llim, Jesus returned to the temple, which He had then 
inspected. There at least the priesthood «were not 
thwarted by popular indifference or ignorance: they 
had power to carry out fully their own views ; they 
were solely responsible for whatever abuses could be 
discovered. In fact, the iniquities which moved the 


308 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 

indignation of Jesus were of their own contrivance, and 
they enriched themselves by a vile trade which robbed 
the worshippers and profaned the holy house. 

Pilgrims from a distance needed the sacred money, 
the half-shekel of the sanctuary, still coined for this 
one purpose, to offer for a ransom of their souls (Exod. 
xxx. 13). And the priests had sanctioned a trade in 
the exchange of money under the temple roof, so 
fraudulent that the dealers’ evidence was refused in the 
courts of justice. 

Doves weté necessary for the purification of the poor, 
who could not afford more costly sacrifices, and sheep 
and oxen were also in great demand. And since the 
unblemished quality of the sacrifices should be attested 
by the priests, they had been able to put a fictitious 
value upon these animals, by which the family of Annas 
in particular had accumulated enormous wealth. 

To facilitate this trade, they had dared to bring the 
defilement of the cattle market within the precincts of 
the House of God. Not indeed into the place where 
the Pharisee stood in his pride and “ prayed with him- 

. self,” for that was holy; but the court of the Gentiles 
was profane ; the din which distracted and the foulness 
which revolted Gentile worship was of no account to 
the average Jew. But Jesus regarded the scene with 
.different eyes. How could the sanctity of that holy 
place not extend to the court of the stranger and the 
proselyte, when it was written, Thy house shall be called 
a house of prayer for all the nations ? Therefore Jesus 
had already, at the outset of His ministry, cleansed 
His Father’s house. Now, in the fulness of His newly 
asserted royalty, He calls it My House: He denounces 
the inionity of their traffic by branding it as a den of 
tcLbers; He cas‘s out the traders themselves, as well 


Mark xi. 15-19.] CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. 3CQ9: 





as the implements of their traffic; and in so doing 
He fanned to a mortal heat the hatred of the chief 
priests and the scribes, who saw at once their revenues 
threatened and their reputation tarnished, and yet dared 
not strike, because all the multitude was astonished at 
His teaching. 

But the wisdom of Jesus did not leave Him within 
their reach at night ; every evening He went forth out 
of the city. 

From this narrative we learn the blinding force of 
self-interest, for doubtless they were no more sensible 
of their iniquity than many a modern slavedealer, 
And we must never rest content because our own 
conscience acquits us, unless we have by thought and 
prayer supplied it with light and guiding. 

We learn reverence for sacred places, since the one 
exercise of His royal authority which Jesus publicly 
displayed was to cleanse the temple, even though upon 
the morrow He would relinquish it for ever, to be 
“your house ’—and desolate. 

We learn also how much apparent sanctity, what 
dignity of worship, splendour of offerings, and pomp of 
architecture may go along with corruption and un- 
reality. 

And yet again, by their overawed and abject helpless- 
ness we learn the might of holy indignation, and the 
awakening power of a bold appeal to conscience. ‘The 
people hung upon Him, listening,” and if all seemed 
vain and wasted effort on the following Friday, what 
fruit of the teaching of Jesus did not His followers 
gather in, as soon as He poured down on them the 
gifts of Pentecost. 

Did they now recall their own reflections after the 
earlier cleansing of the temple? and their Master’s 


3I0 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


ominous words? They had then remembered how it 
was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat Me up. 
And He had said, Destroy this temple, and in three 
days I shall raise it up, speaking of the temple of 
His Body, which was now about to be thrown down, 


THE BAPTISM OF FOHN, WHENCE WAS IT? 


** And they come again to Jerusalem: and as He was walking in the 
temple; there come to [Him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the 
elders j and they said unto Him, By what authority doest Thou these 
things ? or who gave Thee this authority to do these things? And Jesus 
said unto them, I will ask of you one question, and answer Me, and I 
will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, 
was it from heaven, or from men? answer Me. And they reasoned with 
themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven: He will say, Why 
then did ye not believe him? But should we say, From men—they 
feared the people: for all verily held John to be a prophet. And 
they answered Jesus and say, We know not. And Jesus saith unto 
them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.”— 
MARK xi. 27-33 (R.V.). 


THE question put to Jesus by the hierarchy of Jeru- 
salem is recorded in all the synoptic Gospels, But in 
some respects the story is most pointed in the narrative 
of St. Mark. And it is natural that he, the historian 
especially of the energies of Christ, should lay stress 
upon a challenge addressed to Him, by reason of His 
-masterful words and deeds. At the outset, he had 
recorded the astonishment of the people because 
Jesus taught with authority, because “ Verily I say” 
replaced the childish and servile methods by which 
the scribe and the Pharisee sustained their most wilful 
innovations. 

When first he relates a miracle, he tells how their 
wonder increased. because with authority Jesus com- 
manded the unclean spirits and they obeyed, respecting 


Mark xi. 27-33.] BAPTISM OF JOHN. 311 





His self-reliant word “I command thee to come out,” 
more than the most elaborate incantations and exorcisms. 
St. Mark’s first record of collision with the priests was 
when Jesus carried His claim still farther, and said 
“The Son of man hath authority” (it is the same word) 
“on earth to forgive sins.” Thus we find the Gospel 
quite conscious of what so forcibly strikes a careful 
modern reader, the assured and independent tone of 
Jesus; His bearing, so unlike that of a disciple or a com- 
mentator ; His consciousness that the Scriptures them- 
selves are they which testify of Him, and that only He 
can give the life which men think they possess in these. 
In the very teaching of lowliness Jesus exempts Him- 
self, and forbids others to be Master and Lord, because 
these titles belong to Him. 

Impressive as such claims appear when we awake to 
them, it is even more suggestive to reflect that we can 
easily read the Gospels and not be struck by them. We 
do not start when He bids all the weary to come to Him, 
and offers them rest, and yet declares Himself to be 
meek and lowly. He is meek and lowly while He makes 
such claims. His bearing is that of the highest rank, 
joined with the most perfect graciousness ; His great 
claims never irritate us, because they are palpably His 
cue, and we readily concede the astonishing elevation 
whence He so graciously bends down so low. And this 
is one evidence of the truth and power of the character 
which the Apostles drew. 

How natural is this also, that immediately after Palm 
Sunday, when the people have hailed their Messiah, 
royal and a Saviour, and when He has accepted their 
homaze, we find new indications of authority in His 
bearing and His actions. He promptly took them at 
their word. It was now that He wrought His only 


312 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





miracle of judgment, and although it was but the 
withering of a tree (since He came not to destroy men’s 
lives but to save them), yet was there a dread symbolical 
sentence involved upon all barren and unfruitful men 
and Churches. In the very act of triumphal entry, He 
solemnly pronounced judgment upon the guilty city 
which would not accept her King. 

Arrived at the temple, He surveyed its abuses and 
defilements, and returned on the morrow (and so not 
spurred by sudden impulse, but of deliberate purpose), 
el dive out them that.sold and bought. Two years 
ago He had needed to scourge the intruders forth, but 
now they are overawed by His majesty, and obey His 
word. Then, too, they were rebuked for making His 
Father’s house a house of merchandise, but now it is 
His own—‘“ My House,” but degraded yet farther into 
a den of thieves. 

But while traffic and pollution shrank away, misery 
and privation were attracted to Him; the blind and the 
lame came and were healed in the very temple ; and the 
centre and rallying-place of the priests and scribes be- 
held His power to save. This drove them to extremi- 
ties. He was carrying the war into the heart of their 
territories, establishing Himself in their stronghold, and 
making it very plain that since the people had hailed 
Him King, and He had responded to their acclaims, He 
‘would not shrink from whatever His view of that great 
oflice might involve. 

While they watched, full of bitterness and envy, they 
were again impressed, as at the beginning, by the 
strange, autocratic, spo1taneous manner in which He 
woiked, making Himself the source of His blessings, 
as no prophet had ever done since Moses expiated so 
dearly the offence of saying, Must we fetch you water 


Mark xi. 77-33.] BAPTISM OF JOHN. 313 
out of the rock? Jesus acted after the fashion of Him 
Who openeth His hands and satisfieth the desire of 
every living thing. Why did He not give the glory to 
One above? Why did He not supplicate, nor invoke, 
but simply bestow ? Where were the accustomed words 
of supplication, “‘ Hear me, O Lord Ged, hear me,” or, 
“Where is the Lord Ged of Israel ?” 

Here they discerned a flaw, a heresy; and they would 
force Him either to make a fatal claim, or else to moder- 
ate His pretensions at their bidding, which would 
promptly restore their lost influence and leadership. 

Nor need we shrink from confessing that our Lord 
was justly open to such reproach, unless He was indeed 
Divine, unless He was deliberately preparing His fol- 
lowers for that astonishing revelation, soon to come, 
which threw the Church upon her knees in adoration 
of her God manifest in flesh. It is hard to understand 
how the Socinian can defend his Master against the 
charge of encroaching on the rights and honours of 
Deity, and (to borrow a phrase from a different connec- 
tion) sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty of 
God, whereas every priest standeth ministering. If He 
were a creature, He culpably failed to tell us the con- 
ditions upon which He received a delegated authority, 
and the omission has made His Church ever since 
idolatrous. It is one great and remarkable lesson 
suggested by this verse: if Jesus were not Divine, 
what was He? 

Thus it came to pass, in direct consequence upon 
the events which opened the great week of the triumph 
and the cross of Jesus, that the whole rank and 
authority of the temple system confronted Him with a 
stern question. They sat in Moses’ seat. They were 
entitled to examine the pretensions of a new and 


314 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK. 





aspiring teacher. They had a perfect right to demand 
“Tell us by what authority thou doest these things.” 
The works are not denied, but the source whence they 
flow is questioned. 

After so many centuries, the question is fresh to-day. 
For still the spirit of Christ is working in His world, 
openly, palpably, spreading blessings far and wide. 
It is exalting multitudes of ignoble lives by hopes that 
are profound, far-reaching, and sublime. When savage 
real s are explored, it is Christ Who hastens thither 
with~His gospel, before the trader in rum and gun- 
powder can exhibit the charms of a civilization without 
a creed. In the gloomiest haunts of disease and 
misery, madness, idiotcy, orphanage, and vice, there is 
Christ at work, the good Samaritan, pouring oil and 
wine into the gaping wounds of human nature, acting 
quite upon His own authority, careless who looks 
askance, not asking political economy whether genuine 
charity is pauperisation, nor questioning the doctrine 
of development, whether the progress of the race de- 
mands the pitiless rejection of the unfit, and selection 
only of the strongest specimens for survival. That 
iron creed may be natural; but if so, ours is super- 
natural, it is a law of spirit and life, setting us free from 
that base and selfish law of sin and death. The exis- 
tence and energy of Christian forces in our modern 
world is indisputable : never was Jesus a more popular 
and formidable claimant of its crown; never did more 
Hosannas follow Him into the temple. But now as 
formerly His credentials are demanded: what is His 
authority and how has He come by it ? 

Now we say of modern as of ancient inquiries, that 
they are right ; investigation is inevitable and a duty. 

But see how Jesus dealt with those men of old, 


Mark xi. 27-33.] BAPTISM OF JOHN. 315 
Let us not misunderstand Him. He did not merely 
set one difficulty against another, as if we snould start 
some scientific problem, and absolve ourselves from the 
duty of answering any inquiry until science had dis- 
posed of this. Doubtless it is logical enough to point 
out that all creeds, scientific and religious alike, have 
their unsolved problems. But the reply of Jesus was 
not a dexterous evasion, it went ta the root of things, 
and, therefore, it stands good for time and for eternity. 
He refused to surrender the advantage of a witness to 
whom He was entitled: He demanded that all the facts 
and not some alone should be investigated. In truth 
their position bound His interrogators to examine His 
credentials ; to do so was not only their privilege but 
their duty. But then they must begin at the beginning. 
Had they performed this duty for the Baptist ? Who 
or what was that mysterious, lonely, stern preacher of 
righteousness who had stirred the national heart so 
profoundly, and whom all men still revered? They 
themselves had sent to question him, and his answer 
was notorious: he had said that he was sent before the 
Christ ; he was only a voice, but a voice which de- 
manded the preparation of a way before the Lord 
Himself, Who was approaching, and a highway for our 
God. What was the verdict of these investigators 
upon that great movement ? What would they make 
of the decisive testimony of the Baptist ? 

As the perilous significance of this consummate re- 
joinder bursts on their crafty intelligence, as they recoil 
confounded from the exposure they have brought upon 
themselves, St. Mark tells how the question was pressed 
home, “ Answer Me!” But they dared not call John 
an impostor, and yet to confess him was to authenticate 
the seal upon our Lord’s credentials. And Jesus is 


O 





316 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK 


palpably within His rights in refusing to be questioned 
of such authorities as these. Yet immediately after- 
wards, with equal skill and boldness, He declared Him- 
self, and yet defied their malice, in the story of the 
lord of a vineyard, who had vainly sent many servants 
to claim its fruit, and at the last sent his beloved son. 

Now apply the same process to the modern oppo- 
nents of the faith, and it will be found that multitudes 
of their assaults on Christianity imply the negation of 
what they will not and dare not deny. Some will not 
believe in miracles because the laws of nature work 
uniformly. But their uniformity is undisturbed by 
human operations ; the will of man wields, without can- 
celling, these mighty forces which surround us. And 
why may not the will of God do the same, if there be a 
God? Ask them whether they deny His existence, 
and they will probably declare themselves Agnostics, 
which is exactly the ancient answer, ‘‘ We cannot tell.” 
Now as long as men avow their ignorance of the 
existence or non-existence of a Deity, they cannot assert 
the impossibility of miracles, for miracles are simply 
actions which reveal God, as men’s actions reveal their 
presence. 

Again, a demand is made for such evidence, to 
establish the faith, as cannot be had for any fact 
beyond the range of the exact sciences. We are asked, 
Why should we stake eternity upon anything short of 
demonstration ? Yet it will be found that the objector 
is absolutely persuaded, and acts on his persuasion of 
many “truths which never can be proved”—of the 
fidelity of his wife and children, and above all, of the 
difference between right and wrong. That is a funda- 
mental principle: deny it, and society becomes impos- 
sible. And yet sceptical theories are widely diffused 


Mark xi 27-33.] BAPTISM OF JOHN. 317 





which really, though unconsciously, sap the very 
foundations of morality, or assert that it is not from 
heaven but of men, a mere expediency, a prudential 
arrargement of society. 

Such arguments may well ‘‘ fear the people,” for the 
instincts of mankiud know well that all such explana- 
tions of conscience do really explain it away. 

And it is quite necessary in our days, when religion 
is impugned, to see whether the assumptions of its 
assailants would not compromise time as well as eternity, 
and to ask, What think ye of all those fundamental 
principles which sustain the family, society, and the 
state, while they bear testimony to the Church of 
Christ. 


CHAPTER XIL 
THE HUSBANDMEN. 


he And He began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a 

Cpitepard: and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the wine-press, 
and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another 
country. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that 
he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruits of the vineyard. 
And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And 
again he sent unto them another servant; and him they wounded in 
the head, and handled shamefully. And he sent another; and him they 
killed : and many others ; beating some, and killing some. He had 
yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last unto them, saying, They will 
reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, 
This is the heir ; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. 
And they took him, and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vine- 
yard. What, therefore, will the Lord of the vineyard do? He will 
come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto 
others. Have ye not read even this Scripture: 


The stone which the builders rejected, 

The same was made the head of the corner : 
This was from the Lord, 

And it is marvellous in our eyes ? 


And they sought to lay hold on Him ; and they feared the multitude ; 
for they perceived that He spake the parable against them ; and they 
left Him, and went away.—MArkK xii. I-12 (R.V.). 


HE rulers of His people have failed to make Jesus 
responsible to their inquisition. He has exposed 
the hollowness of their claim to investigate His com- 
mission, and formally refused to tell them by what 
authority He did these things. But what He would 
not say for an unjust cross-examination, He proclaimed 


Mark xii, 1-12.] THE HUSBANDMEN. 319 


to all docile hearts ; and the skill which disarmed His 
enemies is not more wonderful than that which in their 
hearing answered their question, yet left them no room 
for accusation. This was achieved by speaking to them 
in parables. The indifferent might hear and not per- 
ceive : the keenness of malice would surely understand 
but could not easily impeach a simple story ; but to His 
own followers it would be given to know the mysteries 
of the kingdom of God. 

His first words would be enough to arouse attention. 
The psalmist had told how God brought a vine out of 
Egypt, and cast out the heathen and planted it. Isaiah 
had carried the image farther, and sung of a vineyard 
in a very fruitful hill. The Well-beloved, Whose it was, 
cleared the ground for it, and planted it with the choicest 
vine, and built a tower, and hewed out a wine-press, 
and looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it had 
brought forth wild grapes. Therefore He would lay it 
waste. This well-known and recognized type the Lord 
now adopted, but modified it to suit His purpose. As 
in a former parable the sower slept and rose, and left 
the earth to bring forth fruit of itself, so in this, the 
Lord of the vineyard let it out to husbandmen and went 
into a far country. This is our Lord’s own explanation 
of that silent time in which no special interpositions 
asserted that God was nigh, no prophecies were heard, 
no miracles startled the careless. It was the time 
when grace already granted should have been peacefully 
ripening. Now we live in sucha period. Unbelievers 
desire a sign. Impatient believers argue that if our 
Master is as near us as ever, the same portents must 
attest His presence; and, therefore, they recognise the 
gift of tongues in hysterical clamour, and stake the 
honour of religion upon faith-healing, and those various 


320 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





obscure phenomena which the annals of every fanati- 
cism can rival. But the sober Christian understands 
that, even as the Lord of the vineyard went into 
another country, so Christ His Son (Who in spirituas 
communion is ever with His people) in another sense 
has gone into a far country to receive a kingdom and 
to return. In the interval, marvels would be simply 
an anachronism. The best present evidence of the 
faith lies in the superior fruitfulness of the vineyard 
He has planted, in the steady advance to rich maturity 
of the vine He has imported from another clime. 

At this point Jesus begins to add a new significance to 
the ancient metaphor. The husbandmen are mentioned. 
Men there were in the ancient Church, who were 
specially responsible for the culture of the vineyard. As 
He spoke, the symbol explained itself. The imposing 
array of chief priests and scribes and elders stood by, 
who had just claimed as their prerogative that He 
should make good His commission to their scrutiny ; and 
none would be less likely to mistake His meaning than 
these self-conscious lovers of chief seats in the syna- 
gogues. Thestructure of the parable, therefore, admits 
their official rank, as frankly as when Jesus bade His 
disciples submit to their ordinances because they sit in 
Moses’ seat. But He passes on, easily and as if un- 
consciously, to record that special messengers from 
heaven had, at times, interrupted the self-indulgent 
guietude of the husbandmen. Because the fruit of the 
vineyard had not been freely rendered, a bondservant 
was sent to demand it. The epithet implies that the 
messenger was lower in rank, although his direct mis- 
sion gave him authority even cver the keepers of the 
vineyard. It expresses exactly the position of the pro- 
phets, few of them of priestly rank, some of them very 


Mark. xii. 1-12.] THE HUSBANDMEN. 321 


humble in extraction, and very rustic in expression, 
but all sent in evil days to faithless husbandmen, to 
remind them that the vineyard was not their own, and 
to receive the fruits of righteousness. Again and again 
the demand is heard, for He sent ‘‘many others ;” and 
always it is rejected with violence, which sometimes 
rises to murder. As they listened, they must have felt 
that all this was true, that while prophet after prophet 
had come to a violent end, not one had seen the official 
hierarchy making common cause with him. And they 
must also have felt how ruinous was this rejoinder to 
their own demand that the people should forsake a 
teacher when they rejected him. Have any of the 
rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him ? was their 
scornful question. But the answer was plain, As long 
as they built the sepulchres of the prophets, and gar- 
nished the tombs of the righteous, and said, If we had 
been in the days of our fathers, we would not have 
been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, 
they confessed that men could not blindly follow a 
hierarchy merely as such, since they were not the of- 
ficial successors of the prophets but of those who slew 
them. The worst charge brought against them was 
only that they acted according to analogy, and filled up 
the deeds of their fathers. It had always been the 
same. 

The last argument of Stephen, which filled his judges 
with madness, was but the echo of this great impeach- 
ment. Which of the prophets did not your fathers 
persecute ? and they killed them which showed 
before of the coming of the Rightecus One, of Whom 
ye have now become the betrayers and murderers. 

That last defiance of heaven, which Stephen thus 
denounced, his Master distinctly foretold. And He 

2!I 


322 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





added the appalling circumstance, that however they 
might deceive themselves and sophisticate their con- 
science, they really knew Him Who He was. They 
felt, at the very least, that into His hands should pass 
all the authority and power they had so long monopo- 
lized: “ This is the Heir; come let us kill Him and the 
inheritance shall be ours.” If there were no more, the 
utterance of these words put forth an extraordinary claim. 
All that should have been rendered up to heaven and 
was withheld, all that previous messengers had demanded 
on behalf ef God without avail, all “the inheritance” 
which these wicked husbandmen were intercepting, all 
this Jesus announces to be His own, while reprehending 
the dishonesty of any other claim upon it. And asa 
matter of fact, if Jesus be not Divine, He has intercepted 
more of the worship due to the Eternal, has attracted 
to Himself more of the homage of the loftiest and pro- 
foundest minds, than any false teacher within the pale 
of monotheism has ever done. It is the bounden duty 
of all who revere Jesus even as a teacher, of all who have 
eyes to see that His coming was the greatest upward 
step in the progress of humanity, to consider well what 
was implied, when, in the act of blaming the usurpers 
of the heritage of God, Jesus declared that inheritance 
to be His own. But this is not all, though it is what 
He declares that the husbandmen were conscious of. 
The parable states, not only that He is heir, but heir 
by virtue of His special relationship to the Supreme, 
Others are bondservants or husbandmen, but He is the 
Son. He does not inherit as the worthiest and most 
obedient, but by right of birth; and His Father, in the 
act of sending Him, expects even these bloodstained 
outlaws to reverence His Son. In such a phrase, ap- 
plied to such criminals, we are made to feel the lofty 





Mack xii. 1-12.] THE HUSBANDMEN, 323 
rank alike of the Father and His Son, which ought to 
have overawed even them. And when we read that “He 
had yet one, a beloved Son,” it seems as if the veil of 
eternity were uplifted, to reveal a secret and awful in- 
timacy, of which, nevertheless, some glimmering con- 
sciousness should have controlled the most desperate 
heart. 

But they only reckoned that if they killed the Heir, 
the inheritance would become their own. It seems the 
wildest madness, that men should know and feel Who 
He was, and yet expect to profit by desecrating His 
rights. And yet so it was from the beginning. If 
Herod were not fearful that the predicted King of the 
Jews was indeed born, the massacre of the Innocents 
was idle. If the rulers were not fearful that this counsel 
and work was of God, they would not, at Gamaliel’s 
bidding, have refrained from the Apostles. And it 
comes still closer to the point to observe that, if they had 
attached no importance, even in their moment of triumph, 
to the prediction of His rising from the dead, they 
would not have required a guard, nor betrayed the secret 
recognition which Jesus here exposes. The same blind 
miscalculation is in every attempt to obtain profit or 
pleasure by means which are known to transgress the 
laws of the all-beholding Judge ofall. It is committed 
every day, under the pressure of strong temptation, by 
men who know clearly that nothing but misery can 
result. So true is it that action is decided, not by a 
course of logic in the brain, but by the temperament 
and bias of our nature as a whole. We need not 
suppose that the rulers roundly spoke such words as 
these, even to themselves. The infamous motive 
lurked in ambush, too far in the back ground of the 
mind perhaps even for consciousness. But it was 


324 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


there, and it affected their decision, as lurking passions 
and self-interests always will, as surely as iron deflects 
the compass. “They caught Him and killed Him,” 
said the unfaltering lips of their victim. And He 
added a circumstance of pain which we often overlook, 
but to which the great minister of the circumcision 
was keenly sensitive, and often reverted, the giving 
Him up to the Gentiles, to a death accursed among the 
Jews; “they cast Him forth out of the vineyard.” 

All evil acts are based upon an overestimate of the 
tolerance of God. He had seemed to remain passive 
while messenger after messenger was beaten, stoned, or 
slain. But now that they had filled up the iniquity of 
their fathers, the Lord of the vineyard would come in 
person to destroy them, and give the vineyard to others. 
This last phrase is strangely at variance with the 
notion that the days of a commissioned ministry are 
over, as, on the other hand, the whole parable is at 
variance with the notion that a priesthood can be 
trusted to sit in exclusive judgment upon doctrine for 
the Church. 

At this point St. Mark omits an incident so striking, 
although small, that its absence is significant. The 
by-standers said, “‘God forbid!” and when the horrified 
exclamation betrayed their consciousness of the position, 
Jesus was content, without a word, to mark their self- 
conviction by His searching gaze. ‘He looked upon 
them.” The omission would be unaccountable if St. 
Mark were simply a powerful narrator of graphic 
incidents ; but it is explained when we think that for 
him the manifestation of a mighty Personage was all 
in all, and the most characteristic and damaging 
admissicns of the hierarchy were as nothing compared 
with a word of his Lord. Thereupon he goes straight 





Mark xii. 13-17.] THE TRIBUTE MONEY. 325 





on to record that, besides refuting their claim by the 
history of the past, and asserting His own supremacy 
in a phrase at once guarded in form and decisive in 
import, Jesus also appealed to Scripture. It was 
written that by special and marvellous interposition of 
the Lord a stone which the recognized builders had 
rejected should crown the building. And the quotation 
was not only decisive as showing that their rejection 
could not close the controversy; it also compensated, 
with a promise of final victory, the ominous words in 
which their malice had seemed to do its worst. Jesus 
often predicted His death, but He never despaired of 
His kingdom. 

No wonder that the rulers sought to arrest Him, 
and perceived that He penetrated and despised their 
schemes. And their next device is a natural outcome 
from the fact that they feared the people, but did not 
discontinue their intrigues; for this was a crafly and 
dangerous attempt to estrange from Him the admiring 
multitude. 


THE TRIBUTE MONEY. 


** And they send unto Him certain of the Pharisees and of the Hero- 
dians, that they might catch Him in talk. And when they were come, 
they say unto Him, Master, we know that Thou art true, and carest 
not for any one: for Thou regardest not the person of men, but of a 
truth teachest the way of God: Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, 
ornot? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But He, knowing their 
hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye Me? bring Me a penny, 
that I may see it. And they brought it. And He saith unto them, 
Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto Him, 
Ceesar’s. And Jesus said unto them, Render unto Czesar the things 
that are Czesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. And they 
marvelled greatly at Him.”—Mark xii. 13-17 (R.V.). 


THE ccrtrast is very striking between this incident and 
the last. Inst-ad of a challenge, Jesus is respectfully 


326 GOSPEL OF ST, MARR. 


consulted ; and instead of a formal concourse of the 
authorities of His religion, He is Himself the authority 
to Whom a few perplexed people profess to submit their 
difficulty. Nevertheless, it is a new and subtle effort 
of the enmity of His defeated foes. They have sent to 
Him certain Pharisees who will excite the popular 
indignation if He yields anything to the foreigner, and 
Herodians who will, if He refuses, bring upon Him the 
colder and deadlier vengeance of Rome. They flatter, 
in order to stimulate, that fearless utterance which 
must often have seemed to them so rash: “ We know 
that Thou art true, and carest not for any one, for 
Thou regardest not the person of men, but of a truth 
teachest the way of God.” And they appeal to a 
higher motive by representing the case to be one of 
practical and personal urgency. “Shall we give, or 
shall we not give?” 

Never was it more necessary to join the wisdom of 
the serpent to the innocence of the dove, for it would 
seem that He must needs answer directly, and that no 
direct answer can fail to have the gravest consequences. 
But in their eagerness to secure this menacing position, 
they have left one weak point in the attack. They 
have made the question altogether a practical one. 
The abstract doctrine of the right to drive out a foreign 
power, of the limits of authority and freedom, they 
have not raised. It is simply a question of the hour, 
Shall we give or shall we not give ? 

And Jesus baffled them by treating it as such, 
There was no longer a national coinage, except only of 
the half shekel for the temple tax. When He asked 
them for a smaller coin, they produced a Roman penny 
stamped with the effigy of Cesar. Thus they confessed 
the use of the Roman currency. Now since they 





Mark xii. 13-17.] THE TRIBUTE MONEY, 327 


accepted the advantages of subjugation, they ought 
also to endure its burdens: since they traded as 
Roman subjects, they ought to pay the Roman tribute. 
Not He had preached submission, but they had avowed 
it; and any consequent unpopularity would fall not 
upon Him but them. They had answered their own 
question. And Jesus laid down the broad and simple 
rule, “Render (pay back) unto Czesar the things that 
are Cezesar’s, and unto God the things that are God's. 
And they marvelled greatly at Him.” No wonder they 
marvelled, for it would be hard to find in all the records 
of philosophy so ready and practical a device to baffle 
such cunning intriguers, such keenness in One Whose 
life was so far removed from the schools of worldly 
wisdom, joined with so firm a grasp on principle, in an 
utterance so brief, yet going down so far to the roots 
of action. 

Now the words of Jesus are words for all time; 
even when He deals with a question of the hour, He 
treats it from the point of view of eternal fitness and 
duty ; and this command to render unto Czesar the 
things which are Czsar’s has become the charter of 
the state against all usurpaticns of tyrannous eccle- 
siastics. A sphere is recognized in which obedience 
to the law is a duty to God. But it is absurd to pre- 
tend that Christ taught blind and servile obedience to 
all tyrants in all circumstances, for this would often 
make it impossible to obey the second injunction, and 
to render unto God the things which are God’s,—a 
clause which asserts in turn the right of conscience 
and the Church against all secular encroachments. 
The point to observe is, that the decision of Jesus is 
simply an inference, a deduction. St. Matthew has 
inserted the word “therefore,” and it is certainly 


328 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





implied : render unto Czesar the things which you con- 
fess to be his own, which bear his image upon their 
face. 

Can we suppose that no such inference gives point 
to the second clause? It would then become, like too 
many of our pious sayings, a mere supplement, inappro- 
priate, however excellent, a make weight, and a plati- 
tude. No example of such irrelevance can be found 
in the story of our Lord. When, finding the likeness 
of Czesar on the coin, He said, Render, therefore, unto 
Czesar the things that are Czsar’s, and unto God the 
things that are God's, He at least suggested that the 
reason for both precepts ran parallel, and the image of 
the higher and heavenlier Monarch could be found on 
what He claims of us. And it is so. He claims all 
we have and all we are. ‘The earth is the Lord's, 
and the fulness thereof:” and “I have made thee, 
thou art Mine.” And for us and ours alike the argu- 
ment holds good. All the visible universe bears deeply 
stamped into its substance His image and superscrip- 
tion. The grandeur of mountains and stars, the 
fairness of violet and harebell, are alike revelations of 
the Creator. The heavens declare His glory: the 
firmament showeth His handiwork: the earth is full of 
His riches: all the discoveries which expand our 
mastery over nature and disease, over time and space, 
are proofs of His wisdom and goodness, Who laid the 
amazing plan which we grow wise by tracing out. 
Find a corner on which contrivance and benevolence 
have not stamped the royal image, and we may doult 
whether that bleak spot owes Him tribute. But no 
desert is so blighted, no solitude so forlorn. 

And we should render unto God the things which 
are God's, seeing His likeness in His world. “ For the 


Mark xii. 13-17.] THE TRIBUTE MONEY. 329 





invisible things of Him since the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being perceived through the things 
which are made, even His everlasting power and 
divinity.” 

And if most of all He demands the love, the heart of 
man, here also He can ask, ‘‘ Whose image and super- 
scription is this?” For in the image of God made He 
man. It is sometimes urged that this image was quite 
effaced when Adam fell. But it was not to protect 
the unfallen that the edict was spoken ‘“ Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in 
the image of God made He man.” He was not an 
unfallen man of whom St. Paul said that he “ought 
not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the 
image and glory of God ;” neither were they unfallen, 
of whom St. James said, ‘‘ We curse men which are 
made after the likeness of God” (Gen. ix. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 
7; James iii. 9). Common men, for whom the assassin 
lurks, who need instruction how to behave in church, 
and whom others scorn and curse, these bear upon 
them an awful likeness; and even when they refuse 
tribute to their king, He can ask them, Whose is this 
image ? 

We see it in the intellect, ever demancing new 
worlds to conquer, overwhelming us with its victories 
over time and space. “In apprehension how like a 
God.” Alas for us! if we forget that the Spirit of 
knowledge and wisdom is no other than the Spirit 
of the Lord God. 

We see this likeness far more in our moral nature. 
It is true that sin has spoiled and wasted this, yet there 
survives in man’s heart, as nowhere else in our world, 
a strange sympathy with the holiness and love of God. 
No other of His attributes has the same power to thrill 


330 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





us. Tell me that He lit the stars and can quench them 
with a word, and I reverence, perhaps I fear Him; yet 
such power is outside and beyond my sphere ; it fails to 
touch me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Even the 
rarer human gifts, the power of a Czar, the wisdom of 
Bacon, are thus beyond me, I am unkindled, they do 
not find me out. But speak of holiness, even the 
stainless holiness of God, undefiled through all eternity, 
and you shake the foundations of my being. And 
why does the reflection that God is pure humble me 
more than the knowledge that God is omnipotent? 
Because it is my spiritual nature which is most con- 
scious of the Divine image, blurred and defaced 
indeed, but not obliterated yet. Because while I 
listen I am dimly conscious of my birthright, my 
destiny, that I was born to resemble this, and all 
is lost if I come short of it. Because every child and 
every sinner feels that it is more possible for him to 
be like his God than like Newton, or Shakespere, or 
Napoleon. Because the work of grace is to call in 
the worn and degraded coinage of humanity, and, as the 
mint restamps and reissues the pieces which have 
grown thin and worn, so to renew us after the image 
of Him that created us, 


CHRIST AND THE SADDUCEES. 


*« And there come unto Him Sadducees, which say that there is no 
resurrection : and they asked Flim, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto 
us, Ifa man’s brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave no 
child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his 
brother. There were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and 
dying left no seed ; and the second took her, and died, leaving no seed 
behind him ; and the third likewise : and the seven left no seed. Last 
of all tie woman also died. In the resurrection whose wife shall she 
be of them? for the seven had her to wife. Jesus said unto them, Is # 


Mark xii. 18-27.] CHRIST AND THE SADDUCEES. 331 


not for this cause that ye err, that ye know not the Scriptures, nor the 
power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither 
marry, nor are given in marriage ; but are as angels in heaven. But as 
touching the dead, that they are raised; have ye not read in the book 
of Moses, in the place concerning the Bush, how God spake unto him, 
saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do 
greatly err.”—MARK xii, 18-27 (R.V.). 


Curist came that the thoughts of many hearts might 
be revealed. And so it was, that when He had silenced 
the examination of the hierarchy, and baffled their craft, 
the Sadducees were tempted to assail Him. Like the 
rationalists of every age, they stood coldly aloof from 
popular movements, and we seldom find them interfering 
with Christ or His followers, until their energies were 
roused by the preaching of His Resurrection, so directly 
opposed to their fundamental doctrines. 

Their appearance now is extremely natural. The 
repulse of every other party left them the only champions 
of orthodoxy against the new movement, with every- 
thing to win by success, and little to lose by failure. 
There is a tone of quiet and confident irony in their 
interrogation, well befitting an upper-class group, a 
secluded party of refined critics, rather than practical 
teachers with a mission to their fellow-men. They 
break utterly new ground by raising an abstract and 
subtle question, a purely intellectual problem, but one 
which reduced the doctrine of a resurrection to an 
absurdity, if only their premises can be made good. 
And this peculiarity is often overlooked in criticism upon 
our Lord’s answer. Its intellectual subtlety was only 
the adoption by Christ of the weapons of his adver- 
caries. But at the same time, He lays great and special 
stress upon the authority of Scripture, in this encounter 
with the party which least acknowledged it. 


332 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


Their objection, stated in its simplest form, is the 
complication which would result if the successive ties 
for which death makes room must all revive together 
when death is abolished. If a woman has married a 
second time, whose wife shall she be ? But their state- 
ment of the case is ingenious, not only because they 
push the difficulty to an absurd and ludicrous extent, 
but much more so because they base it upon a Divine 
ordinance. If there be a Resurrection, Moses must 
answer for all the confusion that will ensue, for Moses 
gave the commandment, by virtue of which a woman 
married seven times. No offspring of any union gave 
it a special claim upon her future life. “In the Resur- 
rection, whose wife shall she be of them ?” they ask, 
* conceding with a quiet sarcasm that this absurd event 
must needs occur. 

For these controversialists the question was solely of 
the physical tie, which had made of twain one flesh. 
They had no conception that the body can be raised 
otherwise than as it perished, and they rightly enough 
felt certain that on such a resurrection woeful compli- 
cations must ensue. 

Now Jesus does not rebuke their question with such 
stern words as He had just employed to others, “ Why 
tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” They were doubtless 
sincere in their conviction, and at least they had not 
come in the disguise of perplexed inquirers and almos 
disciples. He blames them, but more gently: “Is it 
not for this cause that ye err, because ye know not the 
Scriptures, nor the power of God?” They could not 
know one and not the other, but the boastful wisdom 
of this world, so ready to point a jibe by quoting Moses, 
had never truly grasped the meaning of the writer it 


appealed to, 


Mark xii. 18-27.] CZU7RIST AND THE SADDUCEES. 333 


Jesus, it is plain, does not quote Scripture only as 
having authority with His opponents: He accepts it 
heartily: He declares that human error is due to ignor- 
ance of its depth and range of teaching ; and He recog- 
nizes the full roll of the sacred books “the Scriptures.” 

It has rightly been said, that none of the explicit 
statements, commonly relied upon, do more to vindicate 
for Holy Writ the authority of our Lord, than this 
simple incidental question. 

Jesus proceeded to restate the doctrine of the Resur- 
rection and then to prove it; and the more His brief 
words are pondered, the more they will expand and 
deepen. 

St. Paul has taught us that the dead in Christ shall 
rise first (1 Thess. iv. 16). Of such attainment it is 
written, Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the 
first Resurrection (Rev. xx. 6). 

Now since among the lost there could be no question 
of family ties, and consequent embarrassments, Jesus 
confines His statement to these happy ones, of whom 
the Sadducee could think no better than that their new 
life should be a reproduction of their existence here,— 
a theory which they did wisely in rejecting. He uses 
the very language taken up afterwards by His apostle, 
and says, “When they shall rise from the dead.” 
And He asserts that marriage is at an end, and they 
are as the angels in heaven. Here is no question of 
the duration of pure and tender human affection, nor 
do these words compromise in any degree the hopes of 
faithful hearts, which cling to one another. Surely we 
may believe that in a life which is the outcome and re- 
sultant of this life, as truly as the grain is of the seed, 
in a life also where nothing shall be forgotten, but on 
the contrary we shall know what we know not now, 


334 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





there, tracing back the flood of their immortal energies 
to obscure fountains upon earth, and seeing all that each 
has owed half unconsciously to the fidelity and wisdom 
of the other, the true partners and genuine helpmeets 
of this world shall for ever drink some peculiar gladness, 
each from the other’s joy. There is no reason why the 
close of formal unions which include the highest and 
most perfect friendships, should forbid such friendships 
to survive and flourish in the more kindly atmosphere 
of heaven. 

What Christ asserts is simply the dissolution of the 
tie, as an inevitable consequence of such a change in 
the very nature of the blessed ones as makes the tie 
incongruous and impossible. In point of fact, marriage 
as the Sadducee thought of it, is but the counterpoise 
of death, renewing the face which otherwise would 
disappear, and when death is swallowed up, it vanishes 
as an anachronism. In heaven “they are as the 
angels,” the body itself being made “a spiritual body,” 
set free from the appetites of the flesh, and in harmony 
with the glowing aspirations of the Spirit, which now 
it weighs upon and retards. If any would object that 
to be as the angels is to be without a body, rather 
than to possess a spiritual body, it is answer enough 
that the context implies the existence of a body, since 
no person ever spoke of a resurrection of the soul. 
Moreover it is an utterly unwarrantable assumption 
that angels are wholly without substance. Many verses 
appear to imply the opposite, and the cubits of measure- 
ment of the New Jerusalem were ‘according to the 
measure of a man, that is of an angel” (Rev. xxi. 17), 
which seems to assert a very curious similarity indeed. 

The objection of the Sadducees was entirely obviated, 
therefore by the broader, bolder, and more spiritual 


Mark xii. 18-27.] CHRIST AND THE SADDUCEES. 335 


view of a resurrection which Jesus taught. And by 
far the greater part of the cavils against this same 
doctrine which delight the infidel lecturer and popular 
essayist of to-day would also die a natural death, if the 
free and spiritual teaching of Jesus, and its expansion 
by St. Paul, were understood. But we breathe a wholly 
different air when we read the speculations even of so 
great a thinker as St. Augustine, who supposed that we 
should rise with bodies somewhat greater than our 
present ones, because all the hair and nails we ever 
trimmed away must be diffused throughout the mass, 
lest they should produce deformity by their excessive 
proportions (De Civitate Dei, xxii. 19). To all such 
speculation, he who said, To every seed his own body, 
says, Thou fool, thou sowest not that body that shall be. 
But though Jesus had met these questions, it did not 
follow that His doctrine was true, merely because a 
certain difficulty did not apply. And, therefore, He 
proceeded to prove it by the same Moses to whom they 
had appealed, and whom Jesus distinctly asserts to be 
the author of the book of Exodus. God said, “I am 
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of 
the living: ye do greatly err.” 

The argument is not based upon the present tense 
of the verb /o de in this assertion, for in the Greek the 
verb is not expressed. In fact the argument is not a 
verbal one at all; or else it would be satisfied by the 
doctrine of the immortality of the spirit, and would not 
establish any resurrection of the body. It is based 
upon the immutability of God, and, therefore, the im- 
perishability of all that ever entered into vital and rea 
relationship with Him. To cancel such a relationship 
weuld introduce a change into the Eternal. And Moses, 


336 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR: 





to whom they appealed, had heard God expressly 

proclaim Himself the God of those who had long siace 
‘passed out of time. It was, therefore, clear that His 
relationship with them lived on, and this guaranteed 
that no portion, even the humblest, of their true 
personality should perish. Now the body is as real a 
part of humanity, as the soul and spirit are, although a 
much lowlier part. And, therefore, it must not really die. 

It is solemn to observe how Jesus, in this second 
part of His argument, passes from the consideration of 
the future of the blessed to that of all mankind; “as 
touching the dead that they are raised.” With others 
than the blessed, therefore, God has a real though a 
dread relationship. And it will prove hard to reconcile 
this argument of Christ with the existence of any time 
when any soul shall be extinguished. 

“The body is for the Lord,” said St. Paul, arguing 
against the vices of the flesh, ‘‘and the Lord for the 
body.” From these words of Christ he may well have 
learned that profound and far-reaching doctrine, which 
will never have done its work in the Church and in the 
world, until whatever defiles, degrades, or weakens that 
which the Lord has consecrated is felt to blaspheme 
by implication the God of our manhood, unto Whom 
all our life ought to be lived ; until men are no longer 
dwarfed in mines, nor poisoned in foul air, nor massacred 
in battle, men whose intimate relationship with God 
the Eternal is of such a kind as to guarantee the 
resurrection of the poor frames which we destroy. 

How much more does this great proclamation frown 
upon the sins by which men dishonour their own flesh. 
“ Know ye not,” asked the apostle, carrying the same 
doctrine to its utmost limit, “that your bodies are the 
temples of the Holy Ghost?” So truly is God our God, 


7 





Mark xii. 28-34.] THE DISCERNING SCRIBE, 337 


THE DISCERNING SCRIBE, 


“* And one of the scribes came, and heard them questioning to- 
gether, and knowing that He had answered them well, asked Him, 
What commandment is the first of all? Jesus answerel, The first is, 
Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment 
greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Ofa truth, Master, 
‘Thou hast well said that He is one ; and there is none other but He: 
and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and 
with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is much 
more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus 
saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far 
from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask Elim any 
question.” —MarkK xii. 28-34 (R.V.). 


THE praise which Jesus bestowed upon this lawyer is 
best understood when we take into account the circum- 
stances, the pressure of assailants with ensnaring 
questions, the sullen disappointment or palpable ex- 
asperation of the party to which the scribe belonged. 
He had probably sympathized in their hostility; and 
had come expecting and desiring the discomfiture of 
Jesus. But if so, he was a candid enemy; and as 
each new attempt revealed more clearly the spiritual 
insight, the self-possession and balanced wisdom of 
Him Who had been represented as a dangerous fanatic, 
his unfriendly opinion began to waver. For he too 
was at issue with popular views: he had learned in 
the Scriptures that God desireth not sacrifice, that 
incense might be an abomination to Him, and new 
moons and sabbaths things to do away with. And 
so, perceiving that He had answered them well, the 
scribe asked, upon his own account, a very different 
question, not rarely debated in their schools, and often 
22 


338 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 

answered with grotesque frivolity, but which he felt 
to go down to the very root of things. Instead of 
challenging Christ’s authority, he tries His wisdom. 
Instead of striving to entangle Him in dangerous 
politics, or to assail with shallow ridicule the problems 
of the life to come, he asks, What commandment is the 
first of all? And if we may accept as complete this 
abrupt statement of his interrogation, it would seem to 
have been drawn from him by a sudden impulse, or 
wrenched by an over-mastering desire, despite of re- 
luctance and false shame. 

The Lord answered him with great solemnity and 
emphasis. He might have quoted the commandment 
only. But He at once supported the precept itself and 
also His own view of its importance by including the 
majestic prologue, ‘‘ Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, 
the Lord is one; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind, and with all thy strength.” 

The unity of God, what a massive and reassuring 
thought! Amid the debasements of idolatry, with its 
deification of every impulse and every force, amid the 
distractions of chance and change, seemingly so capri- 
cious and even discordant, amid the complexities of the 
universe and its phenomena, there is wonderful strength 
and wisdom in the reflection that God is one, All 
changes obey His hand which holds the rein; by Him 
the worlds were made. The exiled patriarch was 
overwhelmed by the majesty of the revelation that his 
fathers’ God was God in Bethel even as in Beer-sheba: 
it charmed away the bitter sense of isolation, it un- 
sealed in him the fountains of worship and trust, and 
sent him forward with a new hope of protection and 
prosperity, The unity of God, really apprehended, is 


Mark xil. 28-34.] THE DISCERNING SCRIBE, 339 
[ORES EGLO TEES, JORMA iy tL Alle eterno eee eat.) 
a basis for the human will to repose upon, and to 
become self-consistent and at peace. It was the 
parent of the fruitful doctrine of the unity of nature 
which underlies all the scientific victories of the modern 
world. In religion, St. Paul felt that it implies the 
equal treatment of all the human race, when he asked, 
“Ts He the God of Jews only? Is He not the Goc 
of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also, if so be tha: 
God is one” (Rom iii. 29 R.V.). To be one, he seems 
to say, implies being universal also. And if it thus 
excludes the reprobation of races, it disproves equally 
that of individual souls, and all thought of such un- 
equal and partial treatment as should inspire one with 
hope of indulgence in guilt, or with fear that his way 
is hid from the Lord. 

But if this be true, if there be one fountain of all 
life and loveliness and joy, of all human tenderness and 
all moral glory, how are we bound to love Him. Every 
other affection should only deepen our adoring loyalty 
to Him Who gives it. No cold or formal service can 
meet His claim, Who gives us the power to serve. 
No, we must love Him. And as all our nature comes 
from Him, so must all be consecrated: that love 
must embrace all the affections of “heart and soul” 
panting after Him, as the hart after the waterbrooks ; 
and all the deep and steady convictions of the ‘“ mind,” 
musing on the work of His hand, able to give a reason 
for its faith; and all the practical homage of the 
“strength,” living and dying to the Lord. How easy, 
then, would be the fulfilment of His commandments in 

‘detail, and how surely it would follow. All the pre- 
cepts of the first table are clearly implied in this. 

In such another commandment were summed up 
also the precepts which concerned our neighbour 


340 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








When we love him as ourselves (neither exaggerating 
his claims beyond our own, nor allowing our own to 
trample upon his), then we shall work no ill to our 
neighbour, and so love shall fulfil the law. There is 
none other commandment greater than these. 

The questioner saw all the nobility of this reply; 
and the disdain, the anger, and perhaps the persecution 
of his associates could not prevent him from an admiring 
and reverent repetition of the Saviour’s words, and an 
avowal that all the ceremonial observances of Judaism 
were as nothing compared with this. 

While he was thus judging, he was being judged. 
As he knew that Jesus had answered well, so Jesus 
saw that he answered discreetly ; and in view of his un- 
prejudiced judgment, his spiritual insight, and his frank 
approval of One Who was then despised and rejected, 
He said, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. 
But he was not yet within it, and no man knows his fate. 

Sad yet instructive it is to think that he may have 
won the approval of Christ, and heard His words, so 
full of discernment and of desire for his adherence, and 
yet never crossed the invisible and mysterious boundary 
which he then approached so nearly. But we also may 
know, and admire, and confess the greatness and 
goodness of Jesus, without forsaking all to follow Him. 

His enemies had been defeated and put to shame, 
their murderous hate had been denounced, and the nets 
of their cunning had been rent like cobwebs; they had 
seen the heart of one of their own order kindled into 
open admiration, and they henceforth renounced as 
hopeless the attempt to conquer Jesus in debate. No 
man after that durst ask Him any questions. 

He will now carry the war into their own country. 
It will be for them to answer Jesus. 





Mark xii. 35-40.] DAVID’S LORD. 341 





DAVID'S LORD. 


“ And Jesus answered and said, as He taught in the temple, How say 
the scribes that the Christ is the Son of David? David himself said in 
the Holy Spirit, — 


The Lord said unto my Lord, 
Sit Thou on my right hand, 
Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet. 


David himself calleth Him Lord; and whence is He Hisson? And 
the common people heard Him gladly. And in His teaching He said, 
Beware of the scribes, which desi.e to walk in long robes, and zo have 
salutatiens in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the synagogues, and 
chief places at feasts: they which devour widows’ houses, and for a 
pretence make long prayers; these shall receive greater condemnation. 
Mark xii. 35-40 (R.V.). 


Jesus, having silenced in turn His official interrogators 
and the Sadducees, and won the heart of His honest 
questioner, proceeded to submit a searching problem to 
His assailants. Whose son was the Messiah? And 
when they gave Him an obvious and shallow answer, 
He covered them with confusion publicly. The event 
is full of that dramatic interest which St. Mark is so 
well able to discern and reproduce. How is it then 
that he passes over all this aspect of it, leaves us 
ignorant of the defeat and even of the presence of the 
scribes, and free to suppose that Jesus stated the whole 
problem in one long question, possibly without an 
opponent at hand to feel its force ? 

This is a remarkable proof that his concern was not 
really for the pictorial element in the story, but for the 
manifestation of the power of his Master, the “authority ” 
which resounds through his opening chapters, the 
royalty which he exhibits at the close. To him the 
vital point is that Jesus, upon openly claiming to be the 
Christ, and repelling the vehement attacks which were 


342 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





made upon Him as such, proceeded to unfold the 
astonishing greatness which this implied; and that 
after asserting the unity of God and His claim upon all 
hearts, He demonstrated that the Christ was sharer ot 
His throne. 

The Christ, they said, was the Son of David, and this 
was not false: Jesus had wrought many miracles for 
suppliants who addressed Him by that title. But 
was it aJl the truth? How then did David call Him 
Lord? A greater than David might spring from 
among his descendants, and hold rule by an original 
and not merely an ancestral claim: He might not reign 
as a son of David. Yet this would not explain the fact 
that David, who died ages before His coming, was in- 
spired to call Him My Lord. Still less would it satisfy 
the assertion that God had bidden Him sit beside Him 
on His throne. For the scribes there was a serious 
warning in the promise that His enemies should be 
made His footstool, and for all the people a startling 
revelation in the words which follow, and which the 
Epistle to the Hebrews has unfolded, making this Son 
of David a priest for ever, after another order than that 
of Aaron. 

No wonder that the multitude heard with gladness 
teaching at once so original, so profound, and so clearly 
justified by Scripture. 

But it must be observed how remarkably this ques- 
tion of Jesus follows up His conversation with the 
scribe. Then He had based the supreme duty of love 
to God upon the supreme doctrine of the Divine Unity. 
Hle now proceeds to show that the throne of Deity 
is not a lonely throne, and to demand, Whose Son is 
He Who shares it, and Whom David in Spirit accosts 
by the same title as his God ? 


Mark xii. 41-44.) THE WIDOW’S MITE. 343 





St. Mark is now content to give the merest indica- 
tion of the final denunciation with which the Lord 
turned His back upon the scribes of Jerusalem, as He 
previously broke with those of Galilee. But it is 
enough to show how utterly beyond compromise was 
the rupture. The people were to beware of them: 
their selfish objects were betrayed in their very dress, 
and their desire for respectful salutations and seats of 
honour. Their prayers were a pretence, and they 
devoured widows’ houses, acquiring under the cloke of 
religion what should have maintained the friendless. 
But their affected piety would only bring upon them 
a darker doom. 

It is a tremendous impeachment. None is entitled 
to speak as Jesus did, who is unable to read hearts as 
He did. And yet we may learn from it that mere soft- 
ness is not the meekness He demands, and that, when 
sinister motives are beyond doubt, the spirit of Jesus 
is the spirit of burning. 

There is an indulgence for the wrongdoer which is 
mere feebleness and half compliance, and which shares 
in the guilt of Elii And there is a dreadful anger 
which sins not, the wrath of the Lamb. 


THE WIDOW’S MITE, 


** And He sat down over against the treasury, and beheld how the 
multitude cast money into the treasury : and many that were rich cast 
in much. And there came a poor widow, and she cast in two mites, 
which make a farthing. And He called unto Him His disciples, and 
said unto them, Verily I say unto you, This poor widow cast in more 
than al] they which are casting into the treasury; for they all did cast 
in of their superfluity ; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, 
even all her living.’”-—Mark xii. 41-44 (R.V.). 


Wits words of stern denunciation Jesus for ever let 
the temple. Yet He lingered, as if reluctant, in the 


314 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 








outer court; and while the storm of His wrath was 
still resounding in all hearts, observed and pointed out 
an action of the lowliest beauty, a modest flower of 
Hebrew piety in the vast desert of formality. It was 
not too modest, however, to catch, even in that agitating 
hour, the eye of Jesus; and while the scribes were 
devouring widows’ houses, a poor widow could still, 
with two mites which make a farthing, win honourable 
mention from the Son of God. Thus He ever observes 
realities among pretences, the pure flame of love amid 
the sour smoke which wreathes around it. What He 
saw was the last pittance, cast to a service which in 
reality was no longer God’s, yet given with a noble 
earnestness, a sacrifice pure from the heart. 

1. His praise suggests to us the unknown observa- 
tion, the unsuspected influences which surround us. 
She little guessed herself to be the one figure, amid a 
glittering group and where many were rich, who really 
interested the all-seeing Eye. She went away again, 
quite unconscious that the Lord had converted her two 
mites into a perennial wealth of contentment for lowly 
hearts, and instruction for the Church, quite ignorant 
that she was approved of Messiah, and that her little 
gift was the greatest event of all her story. So are we 
watched and judged in our least conscious and our 
most secluded hours. 

2. We learn St. Paul’s lesson, that, “ if the readiness 
is there, it is acceptable according as a man hath, and 
not according as he hath not.” 

In war, in commerce, in the senate, how often does 
an accident at the outset blight a career for ever. One 
is taken in the net of circumstances, and his clipped 
wings can never soar again. But there is no such 
disabling accident in religion. God seeth the heart. 


— 
—-! 


Mark xii. 41-44.] THE WIDOW’S MITE. 345 


The world was redeemed by the blighted and thwarted 
career of One Who would fain have gathered His own 
city under His wing, but was refused and frustrated. 
And whether we cast in much, or only possess two 
mites, an offering for the rich to mock, He marks, 
understands, and estimates aright. 

And while the world only sees the quantity, He 
weighs the motive of our actions. This is the true 
reason why we can judge nothing before the time, why 
the great benefactor is not really pointed out by the 
splendid benefaction, and why many that are last shall 
yet be first, and the first last. 

3. The poor widow gave not a greater proportion of 
her goods, she gave all; and it has been often re- 
marked that she had still, in her poverty, the oppor- 
tunity of keeping back one half. But her heart went 
with her two mites. And, therefore, she was blessed. 
We may picture her return to her sordid drudgery, 
unaware of the meaning of the new light and peace 
which followed her, and why her heart sang for joy. 
We may think of the Spirit of Christ which was in her, 
leading her afterwards into the Church of Christ, an 
obscure and perhaps illiterate convert, undistinguished 
by any special gift, and only loved as the first Chris- 
tians all loved each other. And we may think of her 
now, where the secrets of all hearts are made known, 
followed by myriads of the obscure and undistinguished 
whom her story has sustained and cheered, and by some 
who knew her upon earth, and were astonished to 
learn that this was she. Then let us ask ourselves, Is 
there any such secret of unobtrusive lowly service, born 
of love, which the future will associate with me? 


CHAPTER XIIf. 


THINGS PERISHING AND THINGS STABLE. 


** And as He went forth out of the temple, one of Ilis disciples saith 
unto Him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of 
buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? 
there shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be 
thrown down. And as He sat on the Mount of Olives over against the 
temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked Him privately, 
Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shaé/ de the sign when 
these things are all about to be accomplished? And Jesus began to 
say unto them, Take heed that no man lead you astray. Many shall 
come in My name, saying, I am /e ; and shall lead many astray. And 
when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be not troubled: these 
things must needs come to pass: but the end is not yet.”——MARK xiii. 
1-7 (R.V.). 


N OTHING is more impressive than to stand before 
one of the great buildings of the world, and mark 
how the toil of man has rivalled the stability of nature, 
and his thought its grandeur. It stands up like a crag, 
and the wind whistles through its pinnacles as in a 
grove, and the rooks float and soar about its towers 
as they do among the granite peaks. Face to face 
with one of these mighty structures, man feels his own 
pettiness, shivering in the wind, or seeking a shadow 
from the sun, and thinking how even this breeze may 
blight or this heat fever him, and how at the longest 
he shall have crumbled into dust for ages, and his 
name, and possibly his race, have perished, while this 





Mark xiii. 1-7.] ZHZNGS PERISHING AND STABLE. 347 


same pile shall stretch the same long shadow across 
the plain. 

No wonder that the great masters of nations have 
all delighted in building, for thus they saw their power, 
and the immortality for which they hoped, made solid, 
embodied and substantial, and it almost seemed as if 
they had blended their memory with the enduring 
fabric of the world. 

Such a building, solid, and vast, and splendid, white 
with raarble, and blazing with gold, was the temple 
which Jesus now forsook. A little afterwards, we read 
that its Roman conqueror, whose race were the great 
builders of the world, in spite of the rules of war, and 
the certainty that the Jews would never remain quictly 
in subjection while it stood, “was reluctant to burn 
down so vast a work as this, since this would be a 
mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be an 
ornament to their government while it lasted.” 

No wonder, then, that one of the disciples, who had 
seen Jesus weep for its approaching ruin, and who now 
followed His steps as He left it desolate, lingered, and 
spoke as if in longing and appeal, ‘‘ Master, see what 
manner of stones, and what manner of buildings.” 

But to the eyes of Jesus all was evanescent as a 
bubble, doomed and about to perish: “Seest thou 
these great buildings, there shall not be left here one 
stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” 

The words were appropriate to His solemn mood, 
for He had just denounced its guilt and flung its 
splendour from Him, calling it no longer ‘‘ My house,” 
nor ‘ My Father’s house,” but saying, “Your house 
is left unto you desolate.” Little could all the solid 
strength of the very foundations of the world itself 
avail against the thunderbolt of God. Moreover, it 


348 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








was a time when He felt most keenly the consecration, 
the approaching surrender of His own life. In such 
an hour no splendours distract the penetrating vision ; 
all the world is brief and frail and hollow to the man 
who has consciously given himself to God. It was the 
fitting moment at which to utter such a prophecy. 

But, as He sat on the opposite slope, and gazed back 
upon the towers that were to fall, His three favoured 
disciples and Andrew came to ask Him privately when 
should these things be, and what would be the sign of 
their approach. 

It is the common assertion of all unbelievers that 
the prophecy which followed has been composed since 
what passes for its fulfilment. When Jesus was 
murdered, and a terrible fate befel the guilty city, 
what more natural than to connect the two events ? 
And how easily would a legend spring up that the 
sufferer foretold the penalty? But there is an obvious 
and complete reply. The prediction is too mysterious, 
its outlines are too obscure ; and the ruin of Jerusalem 
is too inexplicably complicated with the final visitation 
of the whole earth, to be the issue of any vindictive 
imagination working with the history in view. 

We are sometimes tempted to complain of this 
obscurity. But in truth it is wholesome and designed. 
We need not ask whether the original discourse was 
thus ambiguous, or they are right who suppose that a 
veil has since been drawn between us and a portion of 
the answer given by Jesus to His disciples. We know 
as much as it is meant that we should know. And 
this at least is plain, that any process of conscious or 
unconscious invention, working backwards after Jeru- 
salem fell, would have given us far more explicit 
predictions than we possess. And, moreover, that 





Mark xiii. 1-7.] TH/NGS PERISHING AND STABLE. 349 





what we lose in gratification of our curiosity, we gain 
in personal warning to walk warily and vigilantly. 

Jesus did not answer the question, When shall these 
things be? But He declared, to men who wondered 
at the overthrow of their splendid temple, that all 
earthly splendours must perish. And He revealed to 
them where true permanence may be . discovered. 
These are two of the central thoughts of the discourse, 
and they are worthy of much more attention from its 
students than they commonly receive, being overlooked 
in the universal eagerness “‘to know the times and 
the seasons.” They come to the surface in the distinct 
words, “ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My 
words shall not pass away.” 

Now, if we are to think of this great prophecy as a 
lurid reflection thrown back by later superstition on 
the storm-clouds of the nation’s fall, how shall we 
account for its solemn and pensive mood, utterly free 
from vindictiveness, entirely suited to Jesus as we 
think of Him, when leaving for ever the dishonoured 
shrine, and moving forward, as His meditations would 
surely do, beyond the occasion which evoked them ? 
Not such is the manner of resentful controversialists, 
eagerly tracing imaginary judgments. They are narrow, 
and sharp, and sour. 

1. The fall of Jerusalem blended itself, in the thought 
of Jesus, with the catastrophe which awaits all that ap- 
pears to be great and stable. Nation shall rise against 
nation, and kingdom against kingdom, so that, although 
armies set their bodies in the gap for these, and heroes 
shed their blood like water, yet they are divided among 
themselves and cannot stand. This prediction, we must 
remember, was made when the iron yoke of Rome im- 


posed quict upon as much of the world as a Galilean 


350 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





was likely to take into account, and, therefore, was by 
no means so easy as it may now appear to us. 

Nature itself should be convulsed. Earthquakes 
should rend the earth, blight and famine should disturb 
the regular course of seed-time and harvest. And these 
perturbations should be the working out of a stern law, 
and the sure token of sorer woes to come, the begin- 
ning of pangs which should usher in another dispensa- 
tion, the birth-agony of a new time. AA little later, and 
the sun should be darkened, and the moon should with- 
draw her light, and the stars should “ be falling” from 
heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens should 
be darkened. Lastly, the course of history should close, 
and the affairs of earth should come to an end, when 
the elect should be gathered together to the glorified 
Son of Man. 

2. It was in sight of the ruin of all these things that 
He dared to add, My word shall not pass away. 

Heresy should assail it, for many should come in the 
name of Christ, saying, I am He, and should lead many 
astray. Fierce persecutions should try His followers, 
and they should be led to judgment and delivered up. 
The worse afflictions of the heart would wring them, 
for brother should deliver up brother to death, and 
the father his child, and children should rise up against 
parents and cause them to be put to death. But all 
should be too little to quench the immortality bestowed 
upon His elect. In their sore need, the Holy Ghost 
should speak in them: when they were caused to be 
put to death, he that endureth to the end, the same 
shall be saved. 

Now these words were treasured up as the utterances 
of One Who had just foretold His own approaching 
murder, and Who died accordingly amid circumstances 





Mark xiii. 8-16.] ZHE JMPENDING JUDGMENT. 351 








full of horror and shame. Yet His followers rejoiced 
to think that when the sun grew dark, and the stars 
were falling, He should be seen in the clouds coming 
with great glory. 

It is the reversal of human Hid ehtibe : the announce- 
ment that all is stable which appears unsubstantial, 
and all which appears solid is about to melt like snow. 

And yet the world itself has since grown old enough 
to know that convictions are stronger than empires, and 
truths than armed hosts. And this is the King of 
Truth. He was born and came into the world to bear 
witness to the truth, and every one that is of the truth 
heareth His voice. He is the Truth become vital, the 
Word which was with God in the beginning. 


THE IMPENDING JUDGMENT. 


‘* For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against king- 
dom ; there shall be earthquakes in divers places; there shall be 
famines : these things are the beginning of travail. But take ye heed 
to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in 
synagogues shall ye be beaten ; and before governors and kings shall ye 
stand for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And the gospel must 
first be preached unto all the nations. And when they lead you fo 
judgment, and deliver you up, be not anxious beforehand what ye shall 
speak : but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: 
for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. And brother shall 
deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children 
shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put todeath. And 
ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake; but he that endureth 
to the end, the same shall be saved. But when ye see the abomination 
of desolation standing where he ought not (let him that readeth under- 
stand), then let them that are in Judzea flee unto the mountains : and 
ict him that ison the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take 
anything out of his house: and let him that is in the field not return 
back to take his cloke.”—MarkK xiii. 8-16 (R.V.). 


WHEN we perceive that one central thought in our 
Lord’s discourse about the last things is-the contrast 


352 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





between material things which are fleeting, and spiritual 
realities which abide, a question naturally arises, which 
ought not to be overlooked. Was the prediction itself 
anything more than a result of profound spiritual 
insight? Are we certain that prophecy in general was 
more than keenness of vision? There are flourishing 
empires now which perhaps a keen politician, and cer- 
tainly a firm believer in retributive justice governing 
the world, must consider to be doomed. And one who 
felt the transitory nature of earthly resources might 
expect a time when the docks of London will resemble 
the lagoons of Venice, and the State which now pre- 
dominates in Europe shall become partaker of the 
decrepitude Spain. But no such presage is a prophecy 
in the Christian sense. Even when suggested by reli- 
gion, it does not claim any greater certainty than that 
of sagacious inference. 

The general question is best met by pointing to such 
specific and detailed prophecies, especially concerning 
the Messiah, as the twenty-second Psalm, the fifty-third 
of Isaiah, and the ninth of Daniel. 

But the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, while we 
have seen that it has none of the minuteness and 
sharpness of an after-thought, is also too definite for a 
presentiment. The abomination which defiled the Holy 
Place, and yet left one last brief opportunity for hasty 
flight, the persecutions by which that catastrophe 
would be heralded, and the precipitating of the crisis for 
the elect’s sake, were details not to be conjectured. So 
was the coming of the great retribution, the beginning 
of His kingdom within that generation, a limit which 
was foretold at least twice besides (Mark ix. 1 and xiv, 
62), with which the “henceforth” in Matthew xxvi. 64 
must be compared. And so was another circumstance 


Mark xiii. 8-16.] THE IMPENDING JUDGMENT. 353 








which is not enough considered: the fact that between 
the fall of Jerusalem and the Second Coming, however 
long or short the interval, no second event of a simila: 
character, so universal in its effect upon Christianity, 
so epoch-making, should intervene. The coming of 
the Son of man should be “in those days after that 
tribulation.” 

The intervening centuries lay out like a plain country 
between two mountain tops, and did not break the vista, 
as the eye passed from the judgment of the ancient 
Church, straight on to the judgment of the world. 
Shall we say then that Jesus foretold that His coming 
would follow speedily ? and that He erred ? Men have 
been very willing to bring this charge, even in the face 
of His explicit assertions. “After a long time the 
Lord of that servant cometh. . . While the bridegroom 
tarried they all slumbered and slept... . If that wicked 
servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His 
coming.” 

It is true that these expressions are not found in 
St. Mark. But instead of them stands a sentence so 
startling, so unique, that it has caused to ill-instructed 
orthodexy great searchings of heart. At least, how- 
ever, the flippant pretence that Jesus fixed an early 
date for His return, ought to be silenced when we read, 
“ Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even 
the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.” 

These words are not more surprising than that He 
increased in wisdom ; and marvelled at the faith of some, 
and the unbelief of others (Luke il. 52; Matt. viii. 10; 
Mark vi. 6). They are involved in the great assertion, 
that He not only took the form of a servant, but emptied 
Himself (Phil. ii. 7). But they decide the question 
of the genuineness of the discourse; for when could 


23 


354 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





they have been invented? And they are to be taken 
in connection with others, which speak of Him not 
in His low estate, but as by nature and inherently, 
the Word and the Wisdom of God; aware of all that 
the Father doeth; and Him in Whom dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily (John i. 1; Luke xi. 49; 
John v. 20; Col. ii. 9). 

But these were “the days of His flesh ;” and that 
expression is not meant to convey that He has since 
laid aside His body, for He says, “A spirit hath 
not flesh . . . as ye see Me have” (Heb. v. 7; 
Luke xxiv. 39). It must therefore express the limita- 
tions, now removed, by which He once condescended to 
be trammelled. What forbids us, then, to believe that 
His knowledge, like His power, was limited by a low- 
liness not enforced, but for our sakes chosen ; and that 
as He could have asked for twelve legions of angels, 
yet chose to be bound and buffeted, so He could have 
known that day and hour, yet submitted to ignorance, 
that He might be made like in all points to His 
brethren ? Souls there are for whom this wonderful 
saying, ‘‘the Son knoweth not,” is even more affecting 
than the words, “The Son of man hath not where to 
lay His head.” 

But now the climax must be observed which made 
His ignorance more astonishing than that of the angels 
in heaven. The recent discourse must be remembered, 
which had asked His enemies to explain the fact that 
David called Him Lord, and spoke of God as occupying 
no lonely throne. And we must observe His emphatic 
expression, that His return shall be that of the Lord 
of the House (ver. 35), so unlike the temper which He 
impressed on every servant, and clearly teaching the 
Epistle to the Hebrews to speak of His fidelity as 


Mark xiii. 8-16.] 7HE IMPENDING JUDGMENT. 355 





that of a Son over His house, and to contrast it sharply 
with that of the most honourable servant (iii. 6). 

It is plain, however, that Jesus did not fix, and re- 
nounced the power to fix, a speedy date for His second 
coming. He checked the impatience of the early 
Church by insisting that none knew the time. 

But He drew the closest analogy between that event 
and the destruction of Jerusalem, and required a like 
spirit in those who looked for_each. 

Persecution should go before them. Signs would 
indicate their approach as surely as the budding of the 
fig tree told of summer. And in each case the disciples 
of Jesus must be ready. When the siege came, they 
should not turn back from the field into the city, nor 
escape from the housetop by the inner staircase. 
When the Son of man comes, their loins should be 
girt, and their lights already burning. But if the end 
has been so long delayed, and if there were signs by 
which its approach might be known, how could it be 
the practical duty of all men, in all the ages, to expect 
it? What is the meaning of bidding us to learn from 
the fig tree her parable, which is the approach of 
summer when her branch becomes tender, and yet 
asserting that we know not when the time is, that it 
shall come upon us as a snare, that the Master will 
surely surprise us, but need not find us unprepared, 
because all the Church ought to be always ready ? 

What does it mean, especially when we observe, 
beneath the surface, that our Lord was conscious of 
addiessing more than that generation, since He declared 
to the first hearers, ‘“ What I say unto you I say unto 
all, Watch?” It is a strange paradox. But yet the 
listory of the Church supplies abundant proof that in 
no age has the expectation of the Second Advent dis- 


356 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


appeared, and the faithful have always been mocked by 
the illusion, or else keen to discern the fact, that He is 
near, even at the doors. It is not enough to reflect 
that, for each soul, dissolution has been the preliminary 
advent of Him who has promised to come again and 
receive us unto Himself, and the Angel of Death is 
indeed the Angel of the Covenant. It must be asserted 
that for the universal Church, the feet of the Lord have 
been always upon the threshold, and the time has been 
prolonged only because the Judge standeth at the door. 
The “birth pangs” of which Jesus spoke have never 
been entirely stilled. And the march of time has not 
been towards a far-off eternity, but along the margin 
of that mysterious ocean, by which it must be engulfed 
at last, and into which, fragment by fragment, the beach 
it treads is crumbling. 

Now this necessity, almost avowed, for giving signs 
which should only make the Church aware of her Lord's 
continual nearness, without ever enabling.her to assign 
the date of His actual arrival, is the probable explana- 
tion of what has been already remarked, the manner in 
which the judgment of Jerusalem is made to symbolize 
the final judgment. But this symbolism makes the 
warning spoken to that age for ever fruitful. As they 
were not to linger in the guilty city, so we are to let 
no earthly interests arrest our flight,—not to turn back, 
but promptly and resolutely to flee unto the everlasting 
hills. As they should pray that their flight through the 
mountains should not be in the winter, so should we 
beware of needing to seek salvation in the winter of 
the soul, when the storms of passion and appetite are 
wildest, when evil habits have made the road slippery 
under foot, and sophistry and selfwill have hidden the 
gulfs in a treacherous wreath of snow. 


wy 
eA 


Mark: xiii. 8-16.] THE IMPENDING JUDGMENT. 357 


Heedfulness, a sense of surrounding peril and of 
the danger of the times, is meant to inspire us while 
we read. The discourse opens with a caution against 
heresy : “ Take heed that no man deceive you.” It goes 
on to caution them against the weakness of their own 
flesh ‘‘ Take heed to yourselves, for they shall deliver 
you up.” It bids them watch, because they know not 
when the time is. And the way to watchfulness is 
prayerfulness ; so that presently, in the Garden, when 
they could not watch with Him one hour, they were 
bidden to watch and pray, that they enter not into 
temptation. 

So is the expectant Church to watch and pray. Nor 
must her mood be one of passive idle expectation, 
dreamful desire of the promised change, neglect of 
duties in the interval, The progress of all art and 
science, and even the culture of the ground, is said to 
have been arrested by the universal persuasion that the 
year One Thousand should see the return of Christ. 
The luxury of millennarian expectation seems even 
now to relieve some consciences from the active duties 
of religion. But Jesus taught His followers that on 
leaving His house, to sojourn in a far country, He 
regarded them as His servants still, and gave them 
every cne his work. And it is the companion of that 
disciple to whom Jesus gave the keys, and to whom 
especially He said, “ What, couldest thou not watch 
with Me one hour?” St. Mark it is who specifies the 
command to the porter that he should watch. To watch 
is not to gaze from the roof across the distant roads. 
It is to have girded loins and a kindled lamp; it is 
not measured by excited expectation, but by readiness, 
Does it seem to us that the world is no longer hostile, 
because persecution and torture are atanend? That 


358 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





the need is over for a clear distinction between her 
and us? This very belief may prove that we are 
falling asleep. Never was there an age to which Jesus 
did not say Watch. Never one in which His return 
would be other than a snare to all whose life is on the 
level of the world. 

Now looking back over the whole discourse, we 
come to ask ourselves, What is the spirit which it 
sought to breathe into His Church? Clearly it is that 
of loyal expectation of the Absent One. There is in 
it no hint, that because we cannot fail to be deceived 
without Him, therefore His infallibility and His Vicar 
shall for ever be left on earth. His place is empty 
until He returns. Whoever says, Lo, here is Christ, 
is a deceiver, and it proves nothing that he shall de- 
ceive many. When Christ is manifested again, it 
shall be as the blaze of lightning across the sky. 
There is perhaps no text in this discourse which directly 
assails the Papacy ; but the atmosphere which pervades 
it is deadly alike to her claims, and to the instincts and 
desires on which those claims rely, 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE CRUSE OF OINTMENT. 


**Now after two days was the feast of the passover and the un- 
leavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought liow they 
might take Him with subtilty, and kill Him: for they said, Not 
during the feast, lest haply there shall be a tumult of the people. And 
while He was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at 
meat, there came a woman having an alabaster cruse of ointment of 
spikenard very costly ; azd she brake the cruse, and poured it over His 
head. But there were some that had indignation among themselves, 
saying, To what purpose hath this waste of the ointment been made? 
For this ointment might have been sold for above three hundred pence, 
and given to the poor. And they murmured against her. But Jesus 
said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good 
work on Me. For ye have the poor always with you, and whensoever 
ye will ye can do them good: but Me ye have not always. She hath 
done what she could: she hath anointed My body aforehand for the 
burying. And verily I say unto you, Wheresoever the gospel shall be 
preached throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath 
done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.”—MARK xiv. I-9 
(R.V.). 


ERFECTION implies not only the absence of 

blemishes, but the presence, in equal proportions, 
of every virtue and every grace. And so the perfect 
life is full of the most striking, and yet the easiest 
transitions. We have just read predictions of trial 
more startling and intense than any in the ancient 
Scripture. If we knew of Jesus only by the varioui 
reports of that discourse, we should think of a recluse 
like Elijah or the Baptist, and imagine that His dis- 


360 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


ciples, with girded loins, should be more ascetic 
than St. Anthony. We are next shown Jesus at a 
supper gracefully accepting the graceful homage of a 
woman. 

From St. John we learn that this feast was given six 
days before the passover. The other accounts post- 
poned the mention of it, plainly because of an incident 
which occurred then, but is vitally connected with a 
decision arrived at somewhat later by the priests. Two 
days before the passover, the council finally determined 
that Jesus must be destroyed. They recognised all the 
dangers of that course. It must be done with subtlety; 
the people must not be aroused; and therefore they 
said, Not on the feast-day. It is remarkable, however, 
that at the very time when they so determined, Jesus 
clearly and calmly made to His disciples exactly the 
opposite announcement. ‘After two days the passover 
cometh, and the Son of man is delivered up to be 
crucified ” (Matt. xxvi. 2). Thus we find at every turn 
of the narrative that their plans are over-ruled, and 
they are unconscious agents of a mysterious design, 
which their Victim comprehends and accepts. On one 
side, perplexity snatches at all base expedients; the 
traitor is welcomed, false witnesses are sought after, 
and the guards of the sepulchre bribed. On the other 
side is clear foresight, the deliberate unmasking of 
Judas, and at the trial] a circumspect composure, a lofty 
silence, and speech more majestic still. 

Meanwhile there is a heart no longer light (for He 
foresees His burial), yet not so burdened that He should 
decline the entertainment offered Him at Bethany. 

This was in the house of Simon the leper, but St. 
John tells us that Martha served, Lazarus sat at meat, 
and the woman who anointed Jesus was Mary. We 


Mark xiv. 1-9.] ZTHE CRUSE OF OINTMENT. 361 


naturally infer some relationship between Simon and 
this favoured family ; but the nature of the tie we know 
not, and no purpose can be served by guessing. Better 
far to let the mind rest upon the sweet picture of Jesus, 
at home among those who loved Him; upon the eager 
service of Martha; upon the man who had known death, 
somewhat silent, one fancies, a remarkable sight for Jesus, 
as He sat at meat, and perhaps suggestive of the thought 
which found utterance a few days afterwards, that a 
banquet was yet to come, when He also, risen from the 
grave, should drink new wine among His friends in the 
kingdom of God. And there the adoring face of her 
who had chosen the better part was turned to her Lord 
with a love which comprehended His sorrow and His 
danger, while even the Twelve were blind—an insight 
which knew the awful presence of One upon his way 
‘to the sepulchre, as well as one who had returned 
thence. Therefore she produced a cruse of very 
precious ointment, which had been “kept” for Him, 
perhaps since her brother was embalmed. And as such 
alabaster flasks were commonly sealed in making, and 
only to be opened by breaking off the neck, she 
crushed the cruse between her hands and poured it on 
His head. On His feet also, according to St. John, 
who is chiefly thinking of the embalming of the body, 
as the others of the anointing of the head. The dis- 
covery of contradiction here is worthy of the abject 
“criticism” which detects in this account a variation 
upon the story of her who was a sinner. As if two 
women who loved much might not both express their 
loyalty, which could not speak, by so fair and feminine a 
device; or as if it were inconceivable that the blameless 
Mary should consciously imitate the gentle penitent. 
But even as tiis unworthy controversy breaks in 


362 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





upon the tender story, so did indignation and murmur- 
ing spoil that peaceful scene. ‘‘Why was not this 
ointment sold for much, and given to the poor?” It 
was not common that others should be more thoughtful 
of the poor than Jesus. 

He fed the multitudes they would have sent away; 
He gave sight to Bartimaeus whom they rebuked, But 
it is still true, that whenever generous impulses express 
themselves with lavish hands, some heartless calculator 
reckons up the value of what is spent, and especially its 
value to “the poor;” the poor, who would be worse off 
if the instincts of love were arrested and the human 
heart frozen. Almshouses are not usually built by those 
who declaim against church architecture ; nor is utilita- 
rianism famous for its charities. And so we are not 
surprised when St. John tells us how the quarrel was 
fomented. Iscariot, the dishonest pursebearer, was ex- 
asperated at the loss of a chance of theft, perhaps of 
absconding without being so great a loser at the end of 
his three unrequited years. True that the chance was 
gone, and speech would only betray his estrangement 
from Jesus, upon Whom so much good property was 
wasted. But evil tempers must express themselves at 
times, and Judas had craft enough to involve the rest 
in his misconduct. It is the only indication in the 
Gospels of intrigue among the Twelve which even 
indirectly struck at their Master’s honour. 

Thus, while the fragrance of the ointment filled the 
house, their parsimony grudged the homage which 
soothed His heart, and condemned the spontaneous 
impulse of Mary’s love. 

It was for her that Jesus interfered, and His words 
went home. 

The poor were always with them: opportunities 


Mark xiv 1-9.) THE CRUSE OF OINTMENT. 363 


would never fail those who were so zealous ; and when- 
soever they would they could do them good,—when- 
soever Judas, for example, would. As for her, she had 
wrought a good work (a high-minded and lofty work is 
implied rather than a useful one) upon Him, Whom they 
should not always have. Soon His body would be in 
the hands of sinners, desecrated, outraged. And she 
only had comprehended, however dimly, the silent 
sorrow of her Master; she only had laid to heart His 
warnings ; and, unabie to save Him, or even to watch 
with Him one hour, she (and through all that week 
none other) had done what she could. She had 
anointed His body beforehand for the burial, and in- 
deed with clear intention “to prepare Him for burial” 
(Matt. xxvi. 12). 

It was for this that His followers had chidden her. 
Alas, how often do our shrewd calculations and harsh 
judgments miss the very essence of some problem which 
only the heart can solve, the silent intention of some 
deed which is too fine, too sensitive, to explain itself 
except only to that sympathy which understands us all. 
Men thought of Jesus as Jacking nothing, and would 
fain divert His honour to the poor; but this woman 
comprehended the lonely heart, and saw the last 
inexorable need before Him. Love read the secret in 
the eyes of love, and this which Mary did shall be told 
while the world stands, as being among the few human 

‘actions which refreshed the lonely One, the purest, the 
most graceful, and perhaps the last. 


364 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





THE TRAITOR. 


** And Judas Iscariot, he that was one of the twelve, went away unto 
the chief priests, that he might deliver Him unto them. And they, 
when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him money. And 
he sought how he might conveniently deliver Him umto them. And on 
the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover, His 
disciples say unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we go and make ready 
that Thou mayest eat the passover? And He sendeth two of His 
disciples, and saith unto them, Go into the city, and there shall meet 
you a man bearing a pitcher of water : follow him; and wheresoever 
he shall enter in, say to the goodman of the house, the Master saith, 
Where is My guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with My 
disciples ? And he wiil himself shew you a large upper room furnished 
and ready: and there make ready for us. And the disciples went 
forth, and came into the city, and found as He had said unto them: 
and they made ready the passover.”-—MARK xiv. 10-16 (R.V.). 


Ir was when Jesus rebuked the Twelve for censuring 
Mary, that the patience of Judas, chafing in a service 
which had grown hateful, finally gave way. He 
offered a treacherous and odious help to the chiefs of 
his religion, and these pious men, too scrupulous to 
cast blood-money into the treasury or to defile them- 
selves by entering a pagan judgment hall, shuddered 
not at the contact of such infamy, warned him not that 
perfidy will pollute the holiest cause, cared as little 
then for his ruin as when they asked what to them 
was his remorseful agony ; but were glad, and prom- 
ised to give him money. By so doing, they became 
accomplices in the only crime by which it is quite 
certain that a soul was lost. The supreme “ offence” 
was planned and perpetrated by no desperate criminal. 
It was the work of an apostle, and his accomplices 
were the heads of a divinely given religion. What an 
awful example of the deadening power, palsying the 


Mark xiv. 10-16.] THE TRAITOR. 365 


conscience, petrifying the heart, of religious observances 
devoid of real trust and love. 

The narrative, as we saw, somewhat displaced the 
story of Simon’s feast, to connect this incident more 
closely with the betrayal. And it now proceeds at 
once to the passover, and the final crisis. In so doing, 
it pauses at a curious example of circumspection, 
intimately linked also with the treason of Judas. The 
disciples, unconscious of treachery, asked where they 
should prepare the paschal supper. And Jesus gave 
them a sign by which to recognise one who had a large 
upper room prepared for that purpose, to which he 
would make them welcome. It is not quite impossible 
that the pitcher of water was a signal preconcerted 
with some disciple in Jerusalem, although secret under- 
standings are not found elsewhere in the life of Jesus. 
What concerns us to observe is that the owner of the 
house which the bearer entered was a believer. To 
him Jesus is ‘the Master,” and can say ‘‘ Where is My 
guest-chamber ?” 

So obscure a disciple was he, that Peter and John 
required a sign to guide them to his house. Yet his 
upper room would now receive such a consecration as 
the Temple never knew. With strange feelings would 
he henceforth enter the scene of the last supper of his 
Lord. But now, what if he had only admitted Jesus 
with hesitation and after long delay? We should 
wonder ; yet there are lowlier doors at which the same 
Jesus stands and knocks, and would fain come in and 
sup. And cold is His welcome to many a chamber 
which is neither furnished nor made ready. 

The mysterious and reticent indication of the place 
is easily understood. Jesus would not enable His 
enemies to lay hands upon Him before the time. His 


366 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


nights had hitherto been spent at Bethany; now first 
it was possible to arrest Him in the darkness, and 
hurry on the trial before the Galileans at the feast, 
strangers and comparatively isolated, could learn the 
danger of their “ prophet of Galilee.” It was only too 
certain that when the blow was struck, the light and 
fickle adhesion of the populace would transfer itself to 
the successful party. Meanwhile, the prudence of 
Jesus gave Him time for the Last Supper, and the 
wonderful discourse recorded by St. John, and the 
conflict and victory in the Garden. When the priests 
learned, at a late hour, that Jesus might yet be arrested 
before morning, but that Judas could never watch Him 
any more, the necessity for prompt action came with 
such surprise upon them, that the arrest was accom- 
plished while they still had to seek false witnesses, and 
to consult how a sentence might best be extorted from 
the Governor. It is right to observe at every point, 
the mastery of Jesus, the perplexity and confusion of 
His foes. 

And it is also right that we should learn to include, 
among the woes endured for us by the Man of Sorrows, 
this haunting consciousness that a base vigilance was 
to be watched against, that He breathed the air of 
treachery and vileness. 

Here then, in view of the precautions thus forced 
upon our Lord, we pause to reflect upon the awful fall 
of Judas, the degradation of an apostle into a hireling, 
a traitor, and aspy. Men have failed to believe that 
one whom Jesus called to His side should sink so low. 

They hzve not observed how inevitably great good- 
ness rejected brings out special turpitude, and dark 
shadows go with powerftl lights ; how, in this supreme 
tragedy, all the motives, passions, moral and immoral 


Mark viv. 10-16.] THE TRAITOR. 367 





impulses are on the tragic scale; what gigantic forms of 
baseness, hypocrisy, cruelty, and injustice stalk across 
the awful platform, and how the forces of hell strip 
themselves, and string their muscles for a last desperate 
wrestle against the powers of heaven, so that here is 
the very place to expect the extreme apostasy. And 
so they have conjectured that Iscariot was only halfa 
traitor. Some project misled him of forcing his Master 
to turn to bay. Then the powers which wasted them- 
selves in scattering unthanked and unprofitable bless- 
ings would exert themselves to crush the foe. Then he 
could claim for himself the credit deserved by much 
astuteness, the consideration due to the only man of 
political resource among the Twelve.. But this well- 
intending Judas is equally unknown to the narratives 
and the prophecies, and this theory does not harmonise 
with any of the facts. Profound reprobation and even 
contempt are audible in all the narratives ; they are quite 
as audible in the reiterated phrase, “ which was one of 
the Twelve,” and in almost every mention of his name, 
as in the round assertion of St. John, that he was a 
thief and stole from the common purse. Only the lowest 
motive is discernible in the fact that his project ripened 
just when the waste of the ointment spoiled his last 
hepe from apostleship,—the hope of unjust gain, and in 
his bargaining for the miserable price which he still 
carried with him when the veil dropped from his inner 
eyes, when he awoke to the sorrow of the world 
which worketh death, to the remorse which was not 
penitence. 

One who desired that Jesus should be driven to 
counter-measures and yet free to take them, wou!d 
probably have favoured His escape when once the 
attempt to arrest Him inflicted the necessary spur, 


368 GUSPEL OF ST, MARK. 

and certainly he would have anxiously avoided any 
appearance of insult. But it will be seen that Judas 
carefully closed every door against his Lord’s escape, 
and seized Him with something very like a jibe on 
his recreant lips. 

No, his infamy cannot be palliated, but it ean be 
understood. For it isa solemn and awful truth, that in 
every defeat of grace the reaction is equal to the action ; 
they who have been exalted unto heaven are brought 
down far below the level of the world ; and the principle 
is universal that Israel cannot, by willing it, be as the 
nations that are round about, to serve other gods. God 
Himself gives him statutes that are not good. He makes 
fat the heart and blinds the eyes of the apostate. There- 
fore it comes that religion without devotion is the 
mockery of honest worldlings ; that hypocrisy goes so 
constantly with the meanest and most sordid lust of 
gain, and selfish cruelty ; that publicans and harlots 
enter heaven before scribes and pharisees; that salt 
which has lost its savour is fit neither for the land nor 
for the dung-hill. Oh, then, to what place of shame 
shall a recreant apostle be thrust down ? 

Moreover it must be observed that the guilt of Judas, 
however awful, is but a shade more dark than that of 
his sanctimonious employers, who sought false witnesses 
against Christ, extorted by menace and intrigue a 
sentence which Pilate openly pronounced to be unjust, 
mocked His despairing agony, and on the resurrection 
morning bribed a pagan soldiery to lie for the Hebrew 
faith. It is plain enough that Jesus could not and did 
not choose the apostles through foreknowledge of what 
they would hereafter prove, but by His perception of , 
what they then were, and what they were capable of 
becoming, if faithful to the light they should receive. 


Mank xiv. 10-16.] THE TRAITOR. 369 


Not on:, when chosen first, was ready to welcome 
the purely spiritual kingdom, the despised Messiah, 
the hfe of poverty and scorn. They had to learn, and 
it was open to them to refuse the discipiine. Once at 
least they were asked, Will ye also go away? How 
severe was the trial may be seen by the rebuke of 
Peter, and the petition of “ Zebedee’s children” and 
their mother. They conquered the same reluctance of 
the flesh which overcame the better part in Judas. 
But he elung desperately to secular hope, until the last 
vestige of such hope was over. Listening to the 
warnings of Christ against the cares of this world, the 
lust of other things, love of high places and contempt of 
lowly service, and watching bright offers rejected and 
influential classes estranged, it was inevitable that a 
sense of personal wrong, and a vindictive resentment, 
should spring up in his gloomy heart. The thorns 
choked the good seed. Then came a deeper fall. As 
he rejected the pure light of self-sacrifice, and the false 
light of his romantic daydreams faded, no curb was 
left on the baser instincts which are latent in the human 
heart. Self-respect being already lost, and conscience 
beaten down, he was allured by low compensations, 
and the apostle became a thief. What better than gain, 
however sordid, was left to a life so plainly frustrated 
and spoiled ? That is the temptation of disillusion, as 
fatal to middle life as the passions are to early man- 
hood. And this fall reacted again upon his attitude 
towards Jesus. Like all who will not walk in the light, 
he hated the light ; like all hirelings of two masters, he 
hated the one he left. Men ask how Judas could have 
consented to accept for Jesus the ploodmoney of a 
slave. The truth is that his treason itself yielded him 
a dreadful satisfaction, and the insulting kiss, and the 


24 


370 GOSTEL OF ST. MARK. 

sneering “ Rabbi,” expressed the malice of his heart. 
Well for him if he had never been born, For when his 
conscience awoke with a start and told him what thing 
he had become, only self-loathing remained to him. 
Peter denying Jesus was nevertheless at heart His own; 
a look sufficed to melt him. For Judas, Christ was 
become infinitely remote and strange, an abstraction, 
“the innocent blood,” no more than that. And so, 
when Jesus was passing into the holiest through the 
rent veil which was His flesh, this first Antichrist 
had already torn with his own hands the tissue of 
the curtain which hides eternity. 

Now let us observe that all this ruin was the result 
of forces continually at work upon human hearts. 
Aspiration, vocation, failure, degradation—it is the 
summary of a thousand lives. Only it is here exhibited 
on a vast and dreadful scale (magnified by the light 
which was behind, as images thrown by a lantern upon 
a screen) for the instruction and warning of the 
world. 


THE SOP. 


“€ And when it was evening He cometh with the twelve. And as they 
sat and were eating, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you shall 
betray Me. even he that eateth with Me. They began to be sorrowful, 
and to say unto Him one by one, Is it 1? And He said unto them. /# 
és one of the twelve, he that dippeth with Me in the dish. For the Son 
of man goeth, even as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man 
through whom the Son of man is betrayed ! good were it for that man 
if he had not been born.”—MARK xiv. 17-21 (R.V.). 


In the deadly wine which our Lord was made to drink, 
every ingredient of mortal bitterness was mingled. 
And it shows how far is even His Church from com- 
prehending Him, that we thik so much more of the 


Mark xiv. 17-21.] THE SOP. 371 








physical than the mental and spiritual horrors which 
gather around the closing scene. 

But the tone of all the narratives, and perhaps 
especially of St. Mark’s, is that of the exquisite Collect 
which reminds us that our Lord Jesus Christ was con- 
tented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of 
wicked men, as well as to suffer death on the cross. 
Treason and outrage, the traitor’s kiss and the weakness 
of those who loved Him, the hypocrisy of the priest and 
the ingratitude of the mob, perjury and a mock trial, 
the injustice of His judges, the brutal outrages of the 
soldiers, the worse and more malignant mockery of 
scribe and Pharisee, and last and direst, the averting 
of the face of God, these were more dreadful to Jesus 
_ than the scourging and the nails. 

And so there is great stress laid upon His Asians 
tion of the misconduct of His own. 

As the dreadful evening closes in, having come to 
the guest chamber “ with the Twelve ’’—eleven whose 
hearts should fail them and one whose heart was dead, 
it was “as they sat and were eating” that the oppres- 
sion of the traitor’s hypocrisy became intolerable, and 
the outraged One spoke out. “Verily I say unto you, 
One of you shall betray Me, even he that eateth with Me.” 
The words are interpreted as well as predicted in the 
plaintive Psalm which says, ‘‘ Mine own familiar friend 
in whom I trusted, which did also eat of My bread, hath 
lifted up his heel against Me.” And perhaps they are 
less a disclosure than a cry. 

Every attempt to mitigate the treason of Judas, 
every suggestion that he may only have striven too 
wilfully to serve our Lord by forcing Him to take 
decided measures, must fail to account for the sense of 
utter wrong which breathes in the simple and piercing 


372 GOSPEL CF ST. MARK. 





complaint “one of you... even he that eateth with 
Me.” There is a tone in all the narratives which is at 
variance with any palliation of the crime. 

No theology is worth much if it fails to confess, at 
the centre of all the words and deeds of Jesus, a great 
and tender human heart. He might have spoken 
of teaching and warnings lavished on the traitor, and 
miracles which he had beheld in vain. What weighs 
heaviest on His burdened spirit is none of these; it is 
that one should betray Him who had eaten His bread. 

When Brutus was dying he is made to say— 


“ My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life, 
I found no man, but he was true to me.” 


But no form of innocent sorrow was to pass Jesus by. 
The vagueness in the words “one of you shall be- 
tray Me,” was doubtless intended to suggest in all a 
great searching of heart. Coming just before the 
institution of the Eucharistic feast, this incident anti- 
cipates the command which it perhaps suggested: “ Let 
a man examine himself, and so let him eat.” It is 
good to be distrustful of one’s self. And if, as was 
natural, the Eleven looked one upon another doubting 
of whom He spake, they also began to say to Him, 
one by one (first the most timid, and then others as 
the circle narrowed), Is it I? For the prince of this 
world had something in each of them,—some frailty 
there was, some reluctance to bear the yoke, some 
longing for the forbidden ways of worldliness, which 
alarmed each at this solemn warning, and made him 
ask, Is it, can it be possible, that it is I? Religious 
self-sufficiency was not then the apostolic mood. Their 
questioning is also remarkable as a proof how little 
they suspected Judas, how firmly he bore himself even 


Mark xiv. 17-21.] THE SOF. 373 
as those all-revealing words were spoken, how strong 
and wary was the temperament which Christ would 
fain have sanctified. For between the Master and him 
there could have been no more concealment. 

The apostles were right to distrust themselves, and 
not to distrust another. They were right, because they 
were so feeble, so unlike their Lord. But for Him 
there is no misgiving: His composure is serene in 
the hour of the power of darkness. And His perfect 
spiritual sensibility discerned the treachery, unknown 
to others, as instinctively as the eye resents the pre- 
sence of a mote imperceptible to the hand. 

The traitor’s iron nerve is somewhat strained as he 
feels himself discovered, and when Jesus is about to 
hand a sop to him, he stretches over, and their hands 
meet in the dish. That is the appointed sign: “ It is 
one of the Twelve, he that dippeth with Me in the 
dish,” and as he rushes out into the darkness, to seek 
his accomplices and his revenge, Jesus feels the awful 
contrast between the betrayer and the Betrayed. For 
Himself, He goeth as it is written of Him. This 
phrase admirably expresses the co-operation of Divine 
purpose and free human will, and by the woe that 
follows He refutes all who would make of God’s 
fore-knowledge an excuse for human sin. He then is 
not walking in the dark and stumbling, though men 
shall think Him falling. But the life of the false one 
is worse than utterly cast away: of him is spoken the 
dark and ominous word, never indisputably certain of 
any other soul, “Good were it for him if that man had 
not been born.” 

“That man!” The order and emphasis are very 
strange. The Lord, who felt and said that one of His 
chosen was a devil,.seems here to lay stress upon the 


374 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





— 





warning thought, that he who fell so low was human, 
and his frightful ruin was evolved from none but human 
capabilities for good and evil. In “the Son of man” 
and “that man,” the same humanity was to be found. 

For Himself, He is the same to-day as yesterday. 
All that we eat is His. And in the most especial and 
far-reaching sense, it is His bread which is broken for 
us at His table. Has He never seen traitor except one 
who violated so close a bond? Alas, the night when 
the Supper of the Lord was given was the same night 
when He was betrayed. 


' BREAD AND WINE. 


“ And as they were eating, He took bread, and when He had blessed, 
He brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take ye: this is My body. 
And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave to them : 
and they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is My blood 
of the covenant, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I 
will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink 
it new in the kingdom of God.” —MarkK xiv. 22-25 (R.V.). 


How much does the Gospel of St. Mark tell us about 
the Supper of the Lord? He is writing to Gentiles. 
He is writing probably before the sixth chapter of 


St. John was penned, certainly before it reached his ~ 


readers. Now we must not undervalue the reflected 
light thrown by one Scripture upon another. Still less 
may we suppose that each account conveys all the 
doctrine of the Eucharist. But it is obvious that 
St. Mark intended his narrative to be complete in 
itself, even if not exhaustive. No serious expositor 
will ignore the fulness of any word or action in which 
later experience can discern meanings, truly involved, 
although not apparent at the first. That would be 
to deny the inspiring guidance of Him who sees the 


Mark xiv. 22-25.] SREAD AND WINE. 375 





end from the beginning. But it is reasonable to omit 
from the interpretation of St. Mark whatever is not 
either explicitly there, or else there in germ, waiting 
underneath the surface for other influences to develope 
it. For instance, the ‘“‘remembrance” of Christ 
in St. Paul’s narrative may (or it may not) mean a 
sacrificial memorial to God of His Body and His Blood. 
If it be, this notion was to be conveyed to the readers 
of this Gospel hereafter, as a quite new fact, resting 
upon other authority. It has no place whatever here, 
and need only be mentioned to point out that St. Mark 
did not feel bound to convey the slightest hint of it. 
A communion, therefore, could be profitably celebrated 
by persons who had no glimmering of any such con- 
ception. Nor does he rely, for an understanding of 
his narrative, upon such familiarity with Jewish ritual 
as would enable his readers to draw subtle analogies 
as they went along. They were so ignorant of these 
observances that he had just explained to them on 
what day the passover was sacrificed (ver. 12). 

But this narrative conveys enough to make the 
Lord’s Supper, for every believing heart, the supreme 
help to faith, both intellectual and Spiritual, and the 
mightiest of promises, and the richest gift of grace. 

It is hard to imagine that any reader would conceive 
that the bread in Christ’s hands had become His body, 
which still lived and breathed; or that His blood, still 
flowing in His veins, was also in the cup He gave to 
His disciples. Noresort could be made to the glorifica- 
tion of the risen Body as an escape from the perplexities 
of such a notion, for in whatever sense the words are 
true, they were spoken of the body of His humiliation, 
before which sti.l lay the agony and the tomb. 

Instinct would revolt yet more against such a gross 


376 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








explanation, because the friends of Jesus are bidden 
to eat and drink. And all the analogy of Christ's 
language would prove that His vivid style refuses to 
be tied down to so lifeless and mechanical a treatment. 
Even in this Gospel they could discover that seed was 
teaching, and fowls were Satan, and that they were 
themselves His mother and His brethren. Further 
knowledge of Scripture would not impair this natural 
freedom of interpretation. For they would discover 
that if animated language were to be frozen to such 
literalism, the partakers of the Supper were them- 
selves, though many, one body and one loaf, that 
Onesimus was St. Paul's very heart, that leaven is 
hypocrisy, that Hagar is Mount Sinai, and that the veil 
of the temple is the flesh of Christ (1 Cor. x. 17 ; Philem. 
ver. 12; Luke xii. 1; Gal. iv. 25; Heb. x. 20). And 
they would also find, in the analogous institution of 
the paschal feast, a similar use of language (Exod, 
xii, 11). 

But when they had failed to discern the doctrine of 
a transubstantiation, how much was left to them. The 
great words remained, in all their spirit and life, “ Take 
ye, this is My Body... this is My Blood of the 
Covenant, which is shed for many.” 

(1) So then, Christ did not look forward to His 
death as to ruin or overthrow. The Supper is an 
institution which could never have been devised at 
any later period. It comes to us by an unbroken line 
from the Founder's hand, and attested by the earliest 
witnesses. None could have interpolated a new ordi- 
nance into the simple worship of the early Church, and 
the last to suggest such a possibility should be those 
sceptics who are deeply interested in exaggerating the es- 
trangements which existed from the first,and which made 


Mark xiv. 22-25.] BREAD AND WINE. 377 


the Jewish Church a keen critic of Gentile innovation, 
and the Gentiles of a Jewish novelty. 

Nor could any genius have devised its vivid and 
pictorial earnestness, its copious meaning, and its 
pathetic power over the heart, except His, Who spoke 
of the Good Shepherd and of the Prodigal Son. And 
so it tells us plainly what Christ thought about His own 
death. Death is to most of us simply the close of life. 
To Him it was itself an achievement, and a supreme 
one. Now it is possible to remember with exultation 
a victory which cost the conqueror’s life. But on the 
Friday which we call Good, nothing happened except 
the crucifixion. The effect on the Church, which is 
amazing and beyond dispute, is produced by the death 
of her Founder, and by nothing else. The Supper has 
no reference to Christ’s resurrection. It is as if the 
nation exulted in Trafalgar, not in spite of the death 
of our great Admiral, but solely because he died; as if 
the shot which slew Nelson had itself been the over- 
throw of hostile navies. Now the history of religions 
offers no parallel to this. The admirers of the Buddha 
love to celebrate the long spiritual struggle, the final 
illumination, and the career of gentle helpfulness. They 
do not derive life and energy from the somewhat vulgar 
manner of his death.- But the followers of Jesus find 
an inspiration (very displeasing to some recent apostles 
of good taste) in singing of their Redeemer's blood. 
Remove from the Creed (which does not even mention 
His three years of teaching) the proclamation of His 
death, and there may be left, dimly visible to man, the 
outline of a sage among the sages, but there will be no 
longer a Messiah, nora Church. It is because He was 
lifted up that He draws all men unto Him. The per- 
petual nourishment of the Church, her bread and wine, 


378 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


are beyond question the slain body of her Master and 
His blood poured out for man. 

What are we to make of this admitted fact, that from 
the first she thought less of His miracles, His teaching, 
and even of His revelation of the Divine character in 
a perfect life, than of the doctrine that He who thus 
lived, died for the men who slew Him? And what 
of this, that Jesus Himself, in the presence of imminent 
death, when men review their lives and set a value on 
their achievements, embodied in a solemn ordinance 
the conviction that all He had taught and done was 
less to man than what He was about to suffer? The 
Atonement is here proclaimed as a cardinal fact in our 
religion, not worked out into doctrinal subtleties, but 
placed with marvellous simplicity and force, in the fore- 
front of the consciousness of the simplest. What the 
Incarnation does for our bewildering thoughts of God, 
the absolute and unconditioned, that does the Eucha- 
rist for our subtle reasonings upon the Atonement. 

(2) The death of Christ is thus precious, because He 
Who is sacrificed for us can give Himself away. ‘Take 
ye” is a distinct offer. And so the communion feast 
is not a mere commemoration, such as nations hold for 
great deliverances. It is this, but it is much more, 
else the language of Christ would apply worse to that 
first supper whence all our Eucharistic language is 
derived, than to any later celebration. When He was 
absent, the bread would very aptly remind them of His 
wounded body, and the wine of His blood poured out. 
It might naturally be said, Henceforward, to your loving 
remembrance this shall be my Body, as indeed, the 
words, As oft as ye drink it, are actually linked with 
the injunction to do thisin remembrance, But scarcely 
could it have been said by Jesus, looking His disciples 


OE ee 


Mark xiv. 22-25.] BREAD AND WINE. 379 
in the face, that the elements were then His body and 
blood, if nothing more than commemoration were in 
His mind. And so long as popular Protestantism fails 
to look beyond this, so long will it be hard pressed and 
harassed by the evident weight of the words of institu- 
tion. These are given in Scripture solely as having 
been spoken then, and no interpretation is valid which 
attends chiefly to subsequent celebrations, and only in 
the second place to the Supper of Jesus and the Eleven. 

Now the most strenuous opponent of the doctrine 
that any change has passed over the material substance 
of the bread and wine, need not resist the palpable 
evidence that Christ appointed these to represent Him- 
self. And how? Not onlyas sacrificed for His people, 
but as verily bestowed upon them. Unless Christ 
mocks us, ‘‘ Take ye” is a word of absolute assurance. 
Christ’s Body is not only slain, and His Blood shed on 
our behalf; He gives Himself fo us as well as for us; 
He is ours. And therefore whoever is convinced that 
he may take part in ‘the sacrament of so great a 
mystery ” should realize that he there receives, con- 
veyed to hirh by the Author of that wondrous feast, all 
that is expressed by the bread and wine. 

(3) And yet this very word “Take ye,” demands our 
co-operation in the sacrament. It requires that we 
should receive Christ, as it declares that He 1s ready to 
impart Himself, utterly, like food which is taken into the 
system, absorbed, assimilated, wrought into bone, into 
tissue and into blood. And if any doubt lingered in our 
minds of the significance of this word, it is removed 
when we remember how belief is identified with feed- 
ing, in St. John’s Gospel. “I am the bread of life: 
he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that 
believeth on Me shall never thirst. . . . He that 


380 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


believeth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life.” 
(John vi. 35, 47, 48.) If it follows that to feed upon 
Christ is to believe, it also follows quite as plainly that 
belief is not genuine unless it really feeds upon Christ. 

It is indeed impossible to imagine a more direct and 
vigorous appeal to man to have faith in Christ than 
this, that He formally conveys, by the agency of His 
Church, to the hands and lips of His disciples, the 
appointed emblem of Himself, and of Himself in the act 
of blessing them. For the emblem is food in its most 
nourishing and in its most stimulating form, in a form 
the best fitted to speak of utter self-sacrifice, by the 
bruised corn of broken bread, and by the solemn re- 
semblance to His sacred blood. We are taught to 
see, in the absolute absorption of our food into our 
bodily system, a type of the completeness wherewith 
Christ gives Himself to us. 

That gift is not to the Church in the gross, it is 
“divided among” us; it individualizes each believer; 
and yet the common food expresses the unity of the 
whole Church in Christ. Being many we are one bread. 

Moreover, the institution of a meal remfnds us that 
faith and emotion do not always exist together. Times 
there are when the hunger and thirst of the soul are 
like the craving of a sharp appetite for food. But the 
wise man will not postpone his meal until such a keen 
desire returns, and the Christian will seek for the 
Bread of life, however his emotions may flag, and his 
soul cleave unto the dust. Silently and often unaware, 
as the substance of the body is renovated and restored 
by food, shall the inner man be strengthened and 
built up by that living Bread. 

(4) We have yet to ask the great question, what 
is the specific blessing expressed by the elements, and 


Mark xiv. 22-25.] BREAD AND WINE. 381 





therefore surely given to the faithful by the sacramen‘. 
Too many are content to think vaguely of Divine 
help, given us for the merit of the death of Christ. 
But bread and wine do not express an indefinite 
Divine help, they express the body and blood of Christ, 
they have to do with His Humanity. We must 
beware, indeed, of limiting the notion overmuch. At 
the Supper He said not “ My flesh,” but ‘‘ My body,” 
which is plainly a more comprehensive term. And 
in the discourse when He said My Flesh is meat 
indeed,” He also said “I am the bread of life... . 
He that eateth Me, the same shall live by Me.” And 
we may not so carnalize the Body as to exclude the 
Person, who bestows Himself. Yet is all the language 
so constructed as to force the conviction upon us that 
His body and blood, His Humanity, is the special 
gift of the Lord’s Supper. As man He redeemed us, 
and as man He imparts Himself to man. 

Thus we are led up to the sublime conception of a new 
human force working in humanity. As truly as the 
life of our parents is in our veins, and the corruption 
which they inherited from Adam is passed on to us, so 
truly there is abroad in the world another influence, 
stronger to elevate than the infection of the fall is to 
degrade; and the heart of the Church is propelling to 
its utmost extremities the pure life of the Second Adam, 
the Second Man, the new Father of the race. As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ; 
and we who bear now the image of our earthy pro- 
genitor shall hereafter bear the image of the heavenly. 
Meanwhile, even as the waste and dead tissues of our 
bodily frame are replaced by new material from every 
mrel, so does He, the living Bread, impart not only 
aid from heaven, but nourishment, strength to our poor 


3% GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





human nature, so weary and exhausted, and renovation 
to what is sinful and decayed. How well does such 
a doctrine of the sacrament harmonize with the 
declarations of St. Paul: “I live, and yet no longer I, 
but Christ liveth in me.” “The Head, from whom all 
the body being supplied and knit together through the 
joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God” 
(Gal. ii 20 ; Col. ii 19). 

(5) In the brief narrative of St. Mark, there are a 
few minor points of interest. 

Fasting communions may possibly be an expression 
of reverence only. The moment they are pressed 
further, or urged as a duty, they are strangely confronted 
by the words, ‘“‘ While they were eating, Jesus took 
bread.” 

The assertion that “they all drank,” follows from 
the express commandment recorded elsewhere. And 
while we remember that the first communicants were 
not laymen, yet the emphatic insistence upon this 
detail, and with reference only to the cup, is entirely at 
variance with the Roman notion of the completeness 
of a communion in one kind. 

It is most instructive also to observe how the far- 
reaching expectation of our Lord looks beyond the 
Eleven, and beyond His infant Church, forward to the 
great multitude which no man can number, and speaks 
of the shedding of His blood “for many." He, who is 
to see of the travail of His soul and to be satisfied, has 
already spoken of a great supper when the house ot 
God shall be filled. And now He will no more drink 
of the fruit of the vine until that great day when the 
marriage of the Lamb having come, and His Bride 
having made herself ready, He shall drink it new in the 
consummated kingdom of God, 


Mark xiv, 26-31.] THE WARNING. 383 


With the announcement of that kingdom He began 
His gospel: how could the mention of it be omitted 
from the great gospel of the Eucharist ? or how could 
the Giver of the earthly feast be silent concerning the 
banquet yet to come? 


THE WARNING 


“* And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of 
Olives. And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended : for it is 
written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered 
abroad. Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go before you into 
Galilee. But Peter said unto Him, Although all shall be offended, yet 
will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that thou 
to-day, even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny me 
thrice. But he spake exceeding vehemently, If I must die with Thee, 
I will not deny Thee. And in like manner also said they all.”—MARK 
xiv. 26-31 (R.V.). 


Some uncertainty attaches to the position of Christ’s 
warning to the Eleven in the narrative of the last 
evening. Was it given at the supper, or on Mount 
Olivet; or were there perhaps premonitory admoni- 
tions on His part, met by vows of faithfulness on 
theirs, which at last led Him to speak out so plainly, 
and elicited such vainglorious protestations, when they 
sat together in the night air ? 

What concerns us more is the revelation of a calm 
and beautiful nature, at every point in the narrative. 
Jesus knows and has declared that His life is now 
closing, and His blood already “ being shed for many.” 
But that does not prevent Him from joining with them 
in singing a hymn. It is the only time when we are 
told that our Saviour sang, evidently because no other 
occasion needed mention; a warning to those who 
draw confide:it inferences from such facts as that “ none 


384 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





ever said He smiled,” or that there is no record of His 
having been sick, It would surprise such theorists to 
observe the number of biographies much longer than any 
of the Gospels, which also mention nothing of the kind. 
The Psalms usually sung at the close of the feast are cexv. 
and the three following. The first tells how the dead 
praise not the Lord, but we will praise Him from this 
time forth for ever. The second proclaims that the 
Lord hath delivered my soul from death, mine eyes 
from tears, and my feet from falling. The third bids 
all the nations praise the Lord, for his merciful kindness 
is great and His truth endureth for ever. And the 
fourth rejoices because, although all nations compassed 
me about, yet I shall not die, but live and declare the 
works of the Lord; and because the stone which the 
builders rejected is become the head stone of the corner, 
Memories of infinite sadness were awakened by the 
words which had so lately rung around His path: 
“Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord ;” 
but His voice was strong to sing, ‘‘ Bind the sacrifice with 
cords, even to the horns of the altar ;” and it rose to the 
exultant close, ‘‘Thou art my God, and I will praise 
Thee: Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee. O give 
thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His mercy 
endureth for ever.” 

This hymn, from the lips of the Perfect One, could 
be no “ dying swan-song.” It uplifted that more than 
heroic heart to the wonderful tranquiility which presently 
said, ‘When I am risen, I will go before you into 
Galilee.” It is full of victory. And now they go unto 
the Mount of Olives. 

Is it enough considered how much of the life of 
Jesus was passed in the open air? He preached on 
the hill side ; He desired that a boat should be at His 


Mark. xiv. 26-31.] THE WARNING. 385 


command upon the lake; He prayed upon the moun- 
tain; He was transfigured beside the snows of Hermon; 
He oft-times resorted to a garden which had not yet 
grown awful; He met His disciples on a Galilean 
mountain ; and He finally ascended from the Mount 
of Olives. His unartificial normal life, a pattern to 
us, not as students but as men—was spent by prefer- 
ence neither in the study nor the street. 

In this crisis, most solemn and yet most calm, He 
leaves the crowded city into which all the tribes had 
gathered, and chooses for His last intercourse with 
His disciples, the slopes of the opposite hill side, while 
overhead is glowing, in all the still splendour of an 
Eastern sky, the full moon of Passover. Here then 
is the place for one more emphatic warning. Think 
how He loved them. As His mind reverts to the 
impending blow, and apprehends it in its most awful 
form, the very buffet of God Who Himself will smite 
the Shepherd, He remembers to warn His disciples of 
their weakness. We feel it to be gracious that He 
should think of them at suchatime. But if we drew 
a little nearer, we should almost hear the beating of 
the most loving heart that ever broke. They were 
all He had. In them He had confided utterly. Even 
as the Father had loved Him, He also had loved them, 
the firstfruits of the travail of His soul. He had 
ceased to call them servants and had called them 
friends. To them He had spoken those affecting 
words, ‘Ye are they which have continued with me in 
My temptations.” How intensely He clung to their 
sympathy, imperfect though it was, is best seen by 
His repeated appeals to it in the Agony. And He 
knew that they loved Him, that the spirit was willing, 
tliat they would weep and lament for Him, sorrowing 


25 


386 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
with a sorrow which He hastened to add that He 
would turn into joy. 

It is the preciousness of their fellowship which 
reminds Him how this, like all else, must fail Him. 
If there is blame in the words, ‘‘ Ye shall be offended,” 
this passes at once into exquisite sadness when He 
adds that He, Who so lately said, ‘‘ Them that Thou 
gavest Me, I have guarded,” should Himself be the 
cause of their offence, “ All ye shall be caused to 
stumble because of Me.” And there is an unfathom- 
able tenderness, a marvellous allowance for their frailty 
in what follows. They were His sheep, and therefore 
as helpless, as little to be relied upon, as sheep when 
the shepherd is stricken. How natural it was for sheep 
to be scattered. 

The world has no parallel for such a warning to 
comrades who are about to leave their leader, so faith- 
ful and yet so tender, so far from estrangement or 
reproach. 

If it stood alone it would prove the Founder of the 
Church to be not only a great teacher, but a genuine 
Son of man. 

For Himself, He does not share their weakness, nor 
apply to Himself the lesson of distrustfulness which 
He teaches them; He is of another nature from these 
trembling sheep, the Shepherd of Zechariah, ‘‘ Who is 
My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts.” He does not 
shrink from applying to Himself this text, which 
awakens against Him the sword of God (Zechariah 
sili. 7). 

Looking now beyond the grave to the resurrection, 
and unestranged by their desertion, He resumes at 
once the old relation; for as the shepherd goeth before 
his sheep, and they follow him, so He will go before 


Mark xiv. 26-31] THE WARNING. 387 





them into Galilee, to the familiar places, far from the 
city where men hate Him. 

This last touch of quiet human feeling completes 
an utterance too beautiful, too characteristic to be 
spurious, yet a prophecy, and one which attests the 
ancient predictions, and which involves an amazing 
claim. 

At first sight it is surprising that the Eleven who 
were lately so conscious of weakness that each asked 
was he the traitor, should since have become too 
self-confident to profit by a solemn admonition. But 
a little examination shows the two statements to be 
quite consistent. They had wronged themselves by 
that suspicion, and never is self-reliance more boastful 
than when it is reassured after being shaken. The 
institution of the Sacrament had invested them with 
new privileges, and drawn them nearer than ever to 
their Master. Add to this the infinite tenderness of 
the last discourse in St. John, and the prayer which 
was for them and not for the world. How did their 
hearts burn within them as He said, ‘‘ Holy Father, 
keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given Me.” 
How incredible must it then have seemed to them, 
thrilling with real sympathy and loyal gratitude, that 
they should forsake such a Master. 

Nor must we read in their words merely a loud and 
indignant self-assertion, all unworthy of the time and 
scene. They were meant to be a solemn vow. The 
love they professed was genuine and warm. Only 
they forgot their weakness ; they did not observe the 
words which declared them to be helpless sheep, en- 
tirely dependent on the Shepherd, whose support would 
speedily seem to fail. 

Instead of harsh and unbecoming criticism, which 


388 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





repeats almost exactly their fault by implying that we 
should not yield to the same pressure, let us learn 
the lesson, that religious exa'tation, a sense of special 
privilege, and the glow of generous emotions, have 
their own danger. Unless we continue to be as little 
children, receiving the Bread of Life, without any pre- 
tence to have deserved it, and conscious still that our 
only protection is the staff of our Shepherd, then the 
very notion that we are something, when we are no- 
thing, will betray us to defeat and shame. 

Peter is the loudest in his protestations; and there 
is a painful egoism in his boast, that even if the others 
fail, he will never deny Him. So in the storm, it is 
he who should be called across the waters. And so an 
early reading makes him propose that he alone should 
build the tabernacles for the wondrous Three. 

Naturally enough, this egoism stimulates the rest. 
For them, Peter is among those who may fail, while 
each is confident that he himself cannot. Thus the 
pride of one excites the pride of many. 

But Christ has a special humiliation to reveal for 
his special self-assertion. That day, and even before 

‘that brief night was over, before the second cock- 
crowing (“the cock-crow” of the rest, being that 
which announced the dawn) he shall deny his Master 
twice. Peter does not observe that his eager contra- 
dictions are already denying the Master’s profoundest 
claims. The others join in his renewed protesta- 
tions, and their Lord answers them no more. Since 
they refuse to learn from Him, they must be left to 
the stern schooling of experience. Even before the 
betrayal, they had an opportunity to judge how little 
their good intentions might avail. For Jesus now 
enters Gethsemane. 


7 


Mark xiv. 32-42.] IN THE GARDEN. 389 





IN THE GARDEN, 


6 And they come unto a place which was named Gethsemane: and He 
saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here, while I pray. And He taketh with 
Him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly amazed, and 
sore troubled. And He saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowe 
ful even unto death: abide ye here, and watch. And He went forward 
a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the 
hour might pass away from Him. And Tle said, Abba, Father, all 
things are possible unto Thee : remove this cup from Me: howbeit not 
what I will, but what Thou wilt. And He cometh, and findeth them 
sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou ? couldest thou not 
watch one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation : 
the spirit indeed is willing, but the fesh is weak. And again He went 
away, and prayed, saying the same words. And again He came, and 
found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy ; and they wist not 
what to answer Him. And He cometh the third time, and saith unto 
them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough; the hour is 
come ; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 
Arise, let us be going: behold, he that betrayeth Me is at hand.”— 
Makk xiv. 32-42 (R.V.). 


ALL Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable ; 
yet must we approach with reverence and solemn 
shrinking, the story of our Saviour’s anguish. It is a 
subject for caution and for reticence, putting away all 
Over-curious surmise, all too-subtle theorizing, and 
choosing to say too little rather than too much. 

It is possible so to argue about the metaphysics of 
the Agony as to forget that a suffering human heart 
was there, and that each of us owes his soul to the 
victory which was decided if not completed in that 
fearful place. The Evangelists simply tell us how He 
suffered. 

Let us begin with the accessories of the scene, and 
gradually approach the centre. 

In the warning of Jesus to His disciples there was an 
undertone of deep sorrow. God will smite Him, and 


390 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
they will all be scattered like sheep. However daunt- 
less be the purport of such words, it is impossible to 
lose sight of their melancholy. And when the Eleven 
rejected His prophetic warning, and persisted in trusting 
the hearts He knew to be so fearful, their professions 
of loyalty could only deepen His distress, and intensify 
His isolation. 

In silence He turns to the deep gloom of the olive 
grove, aware now of the approach of the darkest and 
deadliest assault. 

There was a striking contrast between the scene of 
His first temptation and His last; and His experience 
was exactly the reverse of that of the first Adam, who 
began in a garden, and was driven thence into the 
desert, because he failed to refuse himself one pleasure 
more beside ten thousand. Jesus began where the 
transgression of men had driven them, in the desert 
among the wild beasts, and resisted not a luxury, but 
the passion of hunger craving for bread. Now He is 
in a garden, but how different from theirs. Close by 
is a city filled with foemen, whose messengers are 
already on His track. Instead of the attraction of 
a fruit good for food, and pleasant, and to be desired 
to make one wise, there is the grim repulsion of death, 
and its anguish, and its shame and mockery. He is 
now to be assailed by the utmost terrors of the flesh 
and of the spirit. And like the temptation in the 
wilderness, the assault is three times renewed. 

As the dark “hour” approached, Jesus confessed 
the two conflicting instincts of our human nature in its 
extremity—the desire of sympathy, and the desire of 
solitude. Leaving eight of the disciples at some distance, 
He led still nearer to the appointed place His elect 
of His election, on whom He had so often bestowed 





Mark xiv. 32-42.) JN THE GARDEN. 39r 


special privilege, and whose faith would be less shaken 
by the sight of His human weakness, because they had 
beheld His Divine glory on the holy mount. To these 
He opened His heart. “ My soul is exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death ; abide ye here and watch.” And He 
went from them a little. Their neighbourhood was 
a support in His dreadful conflict, and He could at 
times return to them for sympathy; but they might 
not enter with Him into the cloud, darker and deadlier 
than that which they feared on Hermon. He would 
fain not be desolate, and yet He must be alone. 

But when He returned, they were asleep. As Jesus 
spoke of watching for one hour, some time had doubt- 
less elapsed. And sorrow is exhausting. If the spirit 
do not seek for support from God, it will be dragged 
down by the flesh into heavy sleep, and the brief and 
dangerous respite of oblivion. 

It was the failure of Peter which most keenly affected 
Jesus, not only because his professions had been so 
loud, but because much depended on his force of cha- 
racter. Thus, when Satan had desired to have them, 
that he might sift them all like wheat, the prayers of 
Jesus were especially for Simon, and it was he when he 
was converted who should strengthen the rest. Surely 
then he at least might have watched one hour. And 
what of John, His nearest human friend, whose head 
had reposed upon His bosom? However keen the 
pang, the lips of the Perfect Friend were silent ; only 
He warned them all alike to watch and pray, because 
they were themselves in danger of temptation. 

That is a lesson for all time. No affection and no 
zeal are a substitute for the presence of God realise :, 
and the protection of God invoked. Loyalty and love 
are not cnough without watchfulness and prayer, fer 


392 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
even when the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, and 
needs to be upheld. 

Thus, in His severest trial and heaviest oppression, 
there is neither querulousness nor invective, but a most 
ample recognition of their good will, a most generous 
allowance for their weakness, a most sedulous desire, 
not that He should be comforted, but that they should 
escape temptation. 

With His yearning heart unsoothed, with another 
anxiety added to His heavy burden, Jesus returned to 
His vigil. Three times He felt the wound of unrequited 
affection, for their eyes were very heavy, and they wist 
not what to answer Him when He spoke. 

Nor should we omit to contrast their bewildered 
stupefaction, with the keen vigilance and self-possession 
of their more heavily burdened Lord. 

If we reflect that Jesus must needs experience all the 
sorrows that human weakness and human wickedness 
could inflict, we may conceive of these varied wrongs as 
circles with a common centre, on which the cross was 
planted. And our Lord has now entered the first of 
these; He has looked for pity but there was no man; 
His own, although it was grief which pressed them 
down, slept in the hour of His anguish, and when He 
bade them watch. 

It is right to observe that our Saviour had not bidden 
them to pray with Him. They should watch and pray. 
They should even watch with Him. But to pray for 
Um, or even to pray with Him, they were not bidden. 
And this is always so. Never do we read that Jesus 
and any mortal joined together in any prayer to God. 
On the contrary, when two or three of them asked any- 
thing in His name, He took for Himself the position of 
th: Giver of their petition. And we know certainly 


Mark xiv. 34-42.] THE AGONY. 393 
that He did not invite them to join His prayers, for it 
was as He was praying in a certain place that when He 
ceased, one of His disciples desired that they also might 
be taught to pray (Luke xi. 1). Clearly then they 
Were not wont to approach the mercy seat hand in 
hand with Jesus. And the reason is plain. He came 
‘directly to His Father; no man else came unto the 
Father but by Him ; there was an essential difference 
between His attitude towards God and ours. 

Has the Socinian ever asked himself why, in this 
hour of His utmost weakness, Jesus sought no help 
from the intercession of even the chiefs of the 
apostles ? 

It is in strict harmony with this position, that St. 
Matthew tells us, He now said not Our Father, but My 
Father. No disciple is taught, in any circumstances to 
claim for himself a monopolized or special sonship. He 
may be in his closet and the door shut, yet must he 
remember his brethren and say, Our Father. That is a 
phrase which Jesus never addressed to God. None is 
partaker of His Sonship; none joined with Him in 
supplication to His Father. 


THE AGONY. 


** And He saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death : abide ye here, and watch. And He went forward a little, and 
fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might 
pass away from Him. And He said, Abba, Father, all things are 
possible unto Thee ; remove this cup from Me: howbeit not what [ 
will, but what Thou wilt. And Hecometh, and findeth them sleeping, 
and saith unto Peter, Simon. sleepest thou? couldest thou not waich 
oue hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the 
split indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again He went 
away, and prayed, saying the same words. And again He came, and 
found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy ; and they wist not 
what to answer Him. And He cometh tke third time, and saith unto 
them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough; the hour is 


304 GOSPEL OF ST. MARR. 





come ; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners, 
Arise, let us be going: behold, he that betrayeth Me is at hand.”"— 
MARK xiv. 34-42 (R.V.). 


Sceptics and believers have both remarked that St. 
John, the only Evangelist who was said to have been 
present, gives no account of the Agony. 

It is urged by the former, that the serene composure 
of the discourse in his Gospel leaves no room for subse- 
quent mental conflict and recoil from suffering, which 
are inconsistent besides with his conception of a Divine 
man, too exalted to be the subject of such emotions. 

But do not the others know of composure which bore 
to speak of His Body as broken bread, and seeing in 
the cup the likeness of His Blood shed, gave it to be 
the food of His Church for ever ? 

Was the resignation less serene which spoke of the 
smiting of the Shepherd, and yet of His leading back 
the flock to Galilee? If the narrative was rejected as 
inconsistent with the calmness of Jesus in the fourth 
Gospel, it should equally have repelled the authors of 
the other three. 

We may grant that emotion, agitation, is inconsistent 
with unbelieving conceptions of the Christ of the fourth 
Gospel. But this only proves how false those concep- 
tions are. For the emotion, the agitation, is already there. 
At the grave of Lazarus the word which tells that when 
He groaned in spirit He was troubled, describes one’s 
distress in the presence of some palpable opposing 
force (John xi. 34). There was, however, a much closer 
approach to His emotion in the garden, when the Greek 
world first approached Him. Then He contrasted its 
pursuit of self-culture with His own doctrine of self- 
sacrifice, declaring that even a grain of wheat ust 
either die or abide by itself alone. To Jesus that 


Mark xiv. 34-42] THE AGONY. 395 


doctrine was no smooth, easily announced theory, and 
so He adds, “ Now is My soul troubled, and what shall 
I say? Father save Me from this hour. But for this 
cause came I unto this hour” (John xii. 27). 

Such is the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, by no means 
that of its modern analysts. Nor is enough said, when 
we remind them that the Speaker of these words was 
capable of suffering; we must add that profound agi- 
tation at the last was inevitable, for One so resolute in 
coming to this hour, yet so keenly sensitive of its dread. 

The truth is that the silence of St. John is quite in 
his manner. It is so that he passes by the Sacra- 
ments, as being familiar to his readers, already instructed 
in the gospel story. But he gives previous discourses 
in which the same doctrine is expressed which was em- 
bodied in each Sacrament,—the declaration that Nico- 
demus must be born of water, and that the Jews must 
eat His flesh and drink His blood. It is thus that 
instead of the agony, he records that earlier agitation. 
And this threefold recurrence of the same expedient 
is almost incredible except by design. St. John was 
therefore not forgetful of Gethsemane. 

A coarser infidelity has much to say about the 
shrinking of our Lord from death. Such weakness is 
pronounced unworthy, and the bearing of multitudes 
of brave men and even of Christian martyrs, unmoved 
in the flames, is contrasted with the strong crying and 
tears of Jesus. 

It would suffice to answer that Jesus also failed not 
when the trial came, but before Pontius Pilate wit- 
nessed a good confession, and won upon the cross the 
adoration of a fellow-sufferer and the confession of a 
Roman soldier. It is more than enough to answer 
that His story, so far from relaxing the nerve of human 


396 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 

fortitude, has made those who love Him stronger to 
endure tortures than were emperors and inquisitors 
to invent them. What men call His weakness has 
inspired ages with fortitude. Moreover, the censure 
which such critics, much at ease, pronounce on Jesus 
expecting crucifixion, arises entirely from the magnifi- 
cent and unique standard by which they try Him; for 
who is so hard-hearted as to think less of the valour 
of the martyrs because it was bought by many a lonely 
and intense conflict with the flesh ? 

For us, we accept the standard; we deny that Jesus 
in the garden came short of absolute perfection; but 
we call attention to the fact that much is conceded to us, 
when a criticism is ruthlessly applied to our Lord which 
would excite indignation and contempt if brought to 
bear on the silent sufferings of any hero or martyr but 
Himself. 

Perfection is exactly what complicates the problem 
here. 

Conscious of our own weakness, we not only justify 
but enjoin upon ourselves every means of attaining as 
much nobility as we may. We “steel ourselves to 
bear,” and therefore we are led to expect the same of 
Jesus. We aim at some measure of what, in its lowest 
stage, is callous insensibility. Now that word is nega- 
tive ; it asserts the absence or paralysis of a faculty, not 
its fulness and activity. Thus we attain victory by a 
double process; in part by resolutely turning our mind 
away, and only in part by its ascendancy over appre- 
ciated distress. We administer anodynes to the soul, 
Put Jesus, when he had tasted thereof, would not drink. 
The horrors which were closing around Him were 
perfectly apprehended, that they might perfectly be 
overcome. 


Mark xiv. 34: 42.] THE AGONY. 397 








Thus suffering, He became an example for gentle 
womanhood, and tender childhood, as well as man 
boastful of his stoicism. Moreover, He introduced into 
the world a new type of virtue, much softer and more 
emotional than that of the sages. The stoic, to whom 
pain is no evil, and the Indian laughing and singing 
at the stake, are partly actors and partly perversions 
of humanity. But the good Shepherd is also, for His 
gentleness, a lamb. And it is His influence which has 
opened our eyes to see a charm unknown before, in the 
sensibility of our sister and wife and child. Therefore, 
since the perfection of manhood means neither the 
ignoring of pain nor the denying of it, but the union of 
absolute recognition with absolute mastery of its fear- 
fulness, Jesus, on the approach of agony and shame, 
and who shall say what besides, yields Himself 
beforehand to the full contemplation of His lot. He 
does so, while neither excited by the trial, nor driven 
to bay by the scoffs of His murderers, but in solitude, 
in the dark, with stealthy footsteps approaching through 
the gloom. 

And ever since, all who went farthest down into the 
dread Valley, and on whom the shadow of death lay 
heaviest, found there the footsteps of its conqueror. 
It must be added that we cannot measure the keenness 
of the sensibility thus exposed to torture. A physical 
organization and a spiritual nature fresh from the 
creative hand, undegraded by the transmitted heritage 
of ages of artificial, diseased and sinful habit, unblunted 
by one deviation from natural ways, undrugged by one 
excess, was surely capable of a range of feeling as vast 
in anguish as in delight. 

The sceptic supposes that a torrent of emotion swept 
our Saviour off His feet. The only narratives he can 


398 GOSFEL OF ST. MARK. 





go upon give quite the opposite impression. He is 
seen to fathom all that depth of misery, He allows the 
voice of nature to utter all the bitter earnestness of its 
reluctance, yet He never loses self-control, nor wavers 
in loyalty to His Father, nor renounces His submis- 
sion to the Fathers will. Nothing in the scene is 
more astonishing than its combination of emotion with 
self-government. Time after time He pauses, gently 
and lovingly admonishes others, and calmly returns to 
His intense and anxious vigil. 

Thus He has won the only perfect victory. With 
a nature so responsive to emotion, He has not refused 
to feel, nor abstracted His soul from suffering, nor 
silenced the flesh by such an effort as when we shut our 
ears against a discord. Jesus sees all, confesses that 
He would fain escape, but resigns Himself to God. 

In the face of all asceticisms, as of all stoicisms, 
Gethsemane is the eternal protest that every part of 
human nature is entitled to be heard, provided that the 
spirit retains the arbitration over all. 

Hitherto nothing has been assumed which a reason- 
able sceptic can deny. Nor should sucha reader fail te 
observe the astonishing revelation of character in the 
narrative, its gentle pathos, its intensity beyond what 
commonly belongs to gentleness, its affection, its mas- 
tery over the disciples, its filial submission. Even the 
rich imaginative way of thinking, which invented the 
parables and sacraments, is in the word “this cup.” 

But if the story of Gethsemane can be vindicated 
from such a point of view, what shall be said when it 
is viewed as the Church regards it? Both Testaments 
declare that the sufferings of the Messiah were super- 
natural. In the Old Testament it was pleasing to the 
Father to bruise lim. The terrible cry of Jesus toa 


Mark xiv. 34 42.] THE AGONY. 399 





God who had forsaken Him is conclusive evidence from 
the New Testament. And if we ask what such a cry 
may mean, we find that He is a curse for us, and made 
to be sin for us, Who knew no sin. 

If the older theology drew incredible conclusions 
from such words, that is no reason why we should 
ignore them. It is incredible that God was angry with 
His Son, or that in any sense the Omniscient One 
confused the Saviour with the sinful world. It is in- 
credible that Jesus ever endured estrangement as of 
lost souls from the One Whom in Gethsemane He 
called Abba Father, and in the hour of utter darkness, 
My God, and into whose Fatherly hands He committed 
His Spirit. Yet it is clear that He is being treated 
otherwise than a sinless Being, as such, ought to 
expect. His natural standing-place is exchanged for 
ours. And as our exceeding misery, and the bitter 
- curse of all our sin fell on Him, Who bore it away by 
bearing it, our pollution surely affected His purity as 
keenly as our stripes tried His sensibility. He shud- 
dered as well as agonized. The deep waters in which 
He sank were defiled as well as cold. Only this can 
explain the agony and bloody sweat. And as we, for 
whom He endured it, think of this, we can only be 
silent and adore. 

Once more, Jesus returns to His disciples, but no 
longer to look for sympathy, or to bid them watch and 
pray. The time for such warnings is now past: the 
crisis, ‘‘the hour” is come, and His speech is sad and 
solemn. ‘(Sleep on now and take your rest, it is 
enough.” Had the sentence stopped there, none would 
ever have proposed to treat it as a question, ‘‘Do ye 
now sleep on and take your rest?” It would plainly 
have meant, “Since ye refuse My counsel and will 


400 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








none of my reproof, I strive no further to arouse the 
torpid will, the inert conscience, the inadequate affec- 
tion. Your resistance prevails against My warning.” 

Bet critics fail to reconcile this with what: follows, 
“ Arise, let us be going.” They fail through supposing 
that words of intense emotion must be interpreted like 
a syllogism or a lawyer’s parchment. 

“ For My part, sleep on; but your sleep is now to 
be rudely broken: take your rest so far as respect for 
your Master should have kept you watchful; but the 
traitor is at hand to break such repose, let him not 
find you ignobly slumbering. ‘Arise, he is at hand 
that doth betray Me.’” 

This is not sarcasm, which taunts and wounds. 
But there is a lofty and profound irony in the contrast 
between their attitude and their circumstances, their 
sleep and the eagerness of the traitor. 

And so they lost the most noble opportunity ever 
given to mortals, not through blank indifference nor 
unbelief, but by allowing the flesh to overcome the 
spirit. And thus do multitudes lose heaven, sleeping 
until the golden hours are gone, and He who said, 
“Sleep on now,” says, “He that is unrighteous, let 
him be unrighteous still.” 

Remembering that defilement was far more urgent 
than pain in our Saviour’s agony, how sad is the 
meaning of the words, “the Son of man is betrayed 
into the hands of sinners,” and even of “ the sinners,” 
the representatives of all the evil from which He had 
kept Himself unspotted. 

The one perfect flower of humanity is thrown by 
treachery into the polluted and polluting grasp of 
wickedness in its many forms; the traitor delivers Him 
to hirelings; the hirelings to hypocrites; the hypo- 


Mark xiv. 43-52.] THE ARREST. 401 





crites to an unjust and sceptical pagan judge ; the judge 
to his brutal soldiery; who expose Him to all that 
malice can wreak upon the most sensitive organization, 
or ingratitude upon the most tender heart. 

At every stage an outrage. Every outrage an appeal 
to the indignation of Him who held them in the hollow 
of His hand. Surely it may well be said, Consider 
Him who endured such contradiction ; and endured it 
from sinners against Himself. 


THE ARREST. 


** And straightway, while He yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the 
twelve, and with him a multitude with swords and staves, from the 
chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he that betrayed 
Him had given them a token. saying, Whomsoever [ shall kiss, that is 
He; take Him, and lead Him away safely. And when he was come, 
straightway he came to Him, and saith, Rabbi; and kissed Him. And 
they laid hands on Him, and took Him. But a certain one of them 
that stood by drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high priest, 
and struck off his ear. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are 
ye come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves to seize Me? 
I was daily with youin the temple teaching, and ye took Me not: but 
this is done that the scriptures might be fulfilled. And they all left Him 
and fled. And a certain young man followed with Him, having a linen 
cloth cast about him, over Azs naked éod¢y: and they lay hold on him; 
but he left the linen cloth, and fled naked.” —Maxk xiv. 43-52 (R.V.). 


St. Marx has told this tragical story in the most 
pointed and the fewest words. The healing of the ear 
of Malchus concerns him not, that is bu one miracle 
.among many; and Judas passes from sight unfollowed : 
the thought insisted on jis of foul treason, pitiable 
weakness, brute force predominant, majestic remon- 
strance and panic flight. From the central events no 
accessories can distract him. 

There cometh, he tells us, ‘‘ Judas, one of the Twelve.” 
~ Who Judas was, we knew already, but we are to con- 
26 


402 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 


sider how Jesus felt it now. Before His eyes is the 
catastrophe which His death is confronted to avert— 
the death of a soul, a chosen and richly dowered soul 
for ever lost—in spite of so many warnings—in spite 
of that incessant denunciation of covetousness which 
rings through so much of His teaching, which only the 
presence of Judas quite explains, and which His terrible 
and searching gaze must have made like fire, to sear 
since it could not melt—in spite of the outspoken 
utterances of these last days, and doubtless in spite of 
many prayers, he is lost: one of the Twelve. 

And the dark thought would fall cold upon Christ's 
heart, of the multitudes more who should receive the 
grace of God, His own dying love, in vain. And with 
that, the recollection of many an hour of loving-kind- 
ness wasted on this familiar friend in whom He trusted, 
and who now gave Him over, as he had been expressly 
warned, to so cruel a fate. Even toward Judas, no un- 
worthy bitterness could pollute that sacred heart, the 
fountain of unfathomable compassions, but what speech- 
less grief must have been there, what inconceivable 
horror. For the outrage was dark in form as in essence. 
Judas apparently conceived that the Eleven might, as 
they had promised, rally around their Lord; and he 
could have no perception how impossible it was that 
Messiah should stoop to escape under cover of their 
devotion, how frankly the good Shepherd would give 
His life for the sheep. In the night, he thought, evg- 
sion might yet be attempted, and the town be raised. 
But he knew how to make the matter sure. No other 
would as surely as himself recognise Jesus in the un- 
certain light. If he were to lay hold on Him rudely, 
the Eleven would close in, and in the struggle, the 
prize might yet be lost. But approaching a little in 


Mark xiv. 43-52.] THE ARREST. 403 


‘advance, and peaceably, he would ostentatiously kiss 
his Master, and so clearly point Him out that the arrest 
-would be accomplished before the disciples realized what 
was being done. 

But at every step the intrigue is overmastered by 
the clear insight of Jesus. As He foretold the time of 
His arrest, while yet the rulers said, Not on the feast 
day, so He announced the approach of the traitor, who 
was then contriving the last momentary deception of 
his polluting kiss. 

We have already seen how impossible it is to think 
of Judas otherwise than as the Church has always 
regarded him, an apostate and a traitor in the darkest 
sense. The milder theory is at this stage shattered by 
one small yet significant detail. At the supper, when 
conscious of being suspected, and forced to speak, he 
said not, like the others, ‘‘ Lord,” but ‘‘ Rabbi, is it I?” 
Now they meet again, and the same word is on his 
lips, whether by design and in Satanic insolence, or in 
hysterical agitation and uncertainty, who can say ? 

But no loyalty, however misled, inspired that halt- 
ing and inadequate epithet, no wild hope of a sudden 
blazing out of glories too long concealed is breathed in 
the traitor’s Rabbi! 

With that word, and his envenomed kiss, the “much 
kissing,” which took care that Jesus should not shake 
him off, he passes from this great Gospel. Not a word 
is here of his remorse, or of the dreadful path down 
which he stumbled to his own place. Even the lofty 
remonstrance of the Lord is not recorded: it suffices 
to have told how he betrayed the Son of man witha 
kiss, and so infused a peculiar and subtle poison into 
Christ's draught of deadly wine. That, and not the 
‘punishment of that, is what St. Mark recorded for the 


404 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





Church, the awful fall of an apostle, chosen of Christ; 
the solemn warning to all privileged persons, richly 
endowed and highly placed ; the door to hell, as Bunyan 
has it, from the very gate of Heaven. 

A great multitude with swords and staves had come 
from the rulers. Possibly some attempt at rescue was 
apprehended from the Galileans who had so lately 
triumphed around Jesus. More probably the demon- 
Stration was planned to suggest to Pilate that a 
dangerous political agitation had to be confronted. 

At all events, the multitude did not terrify the dis- 
ciples; cries arose from their little band, ‘ Lord shall we 
smite with the sword ?” and if Jesus had consented, it 
seems that with two swords the Eleven whom declaimers 
make to be so craven, would have assailed the multitude 
in arms. 

Now this is what points the moral of their failure. 
Few of us would confess personal cowardice by accept- 
ing a warning from the fears of the fearful. But the 
fears of the brave must needs alarm us, It is one 
thing to defy death, sword in hand, in some wild 
hour of chivalrous effort—although the honours we 
shower upon the valiant prove that even such fortitude 
is less common than we would fain believe. But there 
is a deep which opens beyond this. It is a harder 
thing to endure the silent passive anguish to which the 
Lamb, dumb before the shearers, calls His followers. 
The victories of the spirit are beyond animal strength 
of nerve. In their highest forms they are beyond the 
noble reach of intellectual resolution. How far beyond 
it we may learn by contrasting the excitement and 
then the panic of the Eleven with the sublime compo- 
sure of their Lord, 

One of them, whom we know to have been the 


Mak xiv. 43-52] THE ARREST. 405 





impulsive Simon, showed his loss of self-control by 
what would have been a breach of discipline, even had 
resistance been intended. While others asked should 
they smite with the sword, he took the decision upon 
himself, and struck a feeble and abortive blow, enough 
to exasperate but not to disable. In so doing he 
added, to the sorrows of Jesus, disobedience, and the 
inflaming of angry passion among His eaptors. 

Strange it is, and instructive, that the first act of 
violence in the annals of Christianity came not from 
her assailants but from her son. And strange to think 
with what emotions Jesus must have beheld that blow. 

St. Mark records neither the healing of Malchus nor 
the rebuke of Peter. Throughout the events which 
now crowd fast upon us, we shall not find him care- 
ful about fulness of detail. This is never his manner, 
though he loves any detail which is graphic, char- 
acteristic, or interisifying. But his concern is with the 
spirit of the Lord and of His enemies: he is blind to 
no form of injustice or insult which heightened the 
sufferings of Jesus, to no manifestation of dignity and 
self-control overmastering the rage of hell. If He is 
unjustly tried by Caiaphas, it matters nothing that Annas 
also wronged Him. If the soldiers of Pilate insulted 
Him, it matters nothing that the soldiers of Herod also 
set Him at nought. Yet the flight of a nameless 
youth is recorded, since it adds a touch to the picture 
of His abandonn:ent. 

And therefore he records the indignant remonstrance 
of Jesus upon the manner of His arrest. He was no 
man of violence and blood, to be arrested with a 
display of overwhelming force. He needed not to be 
sought in concealment and at midnight. 

Ile had spoken daily in the temple, but then their 


406 GOSPEL GF ST. MARK. 








malice was defeated, their snares rent asunder, and 
the people witnessed their exposure. But all this was 
part of His predicted suffering, for Whom not only pain 
but injustice was foretold, Who should be taken from 
prison and from judgment. 

It was a lofty remonstrance. It showed how little 
could danger and betrayal disturb His consciousness, 
and how clearly He discerned the calculation of His 
foes, 

At this moment of unmistakable surrender, His 
disciples forsook Him and fled. One young man did 
indeed follow Him, springing hastily from slumber in 
some adjacent cottage, and wrapped only in a linen 
cloth. But he too, when seized, fled away, leaving his 
only covering in the hands of the soldiers. 

This youth may perhaps have been the Evangelist 
himself, of whom we know that, a few years later, he 
joined Paul and Barnabas at the outset, but forsook 
them when their journey became perilous. 

It is at least as probable that the incident is recorded 
as a picturesque climax to that utter panic which left 
Jesus to tread the winepress alone, deserted by all, 
though He never forsook any. 


BEFORE CAIAPHAS, 


** And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and there come 
together with him all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes, 
And Peter had followed Him afar off, even within, into the court of the 
high priest ; and he was sitting with the officers, and warming himself in 
the light of the fire. Now the chief priests and the whele council sought 
witness against Jesus to put Him to death; and found it not. tor 
many bare false witness against Him, and their witness agreed not 
together. And there stood up certain, and bare false witness ayaivst 
Him, saying, We heard Him say, I will destroy this temple that is 
wade with hands, and in three days 1 will build another made without 


Mark xiv. 53-65] BEFORE CAIAPHAS. 407 


hands. And not even so did their witness agree together. And the 
high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest 
Thou nothing ? what is it which these witness against Thee? But He 
held His peace and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked 
Him, and saith unto Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed ? 
And Jesus said, Iam: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the 
right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the 
high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What further need have we of 
witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy : what think ye? And they 
all condemned Him to be worthy of death. And some began to spit 
on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet. Him, and to say unto 
Him, Prophesy: and the officers received Him with blows of their 
hands ”—MarkK xiv. 53-65 (R.V.). 


WE have now to see the Judge of quick and dead 
taken from prison and judgment, the Preacher of 
liberty to the captives bound, and the Prince of Life 
killed. It is the most solemn page in earthly story ; 
and as we read St. Mark's account, it will concern us 
less to reconcile his statements with those of the other 
three, than to see what is taught us by his especial 
manner of regarding it. Reconciliation, indeed, is quite 
unnecessary, if we bear in mind that to omit a fact is 
not to contradict it. For St. Mark is not writing a 
history but a Gospel, and his readers are Gentiles, for 
whom the details of Hebrew intrigue matter nothing, 
and the trial before a Galilean Tetrarch would be only 
half intelligible. 

St. John, who had been an eye-witness, knew that 
the private inquiry before Annas was vital, for there 
the decision was taken which subsequent and more 
formal assemblies did but ratify. He therefore, writing 
last, threw this ray of explanatory light over all that 
the others had related. St. Luke recorded in the Acts 
(iv. 27) that the apostles recognised, in the consen 
of Romans and Jews, and of Herod and Pilate, whai 
the Psalmist had long foretold, the rage of the heathen 


408 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





and the vain imagination of the peoples, and the con- 
junction of kings and rulers. His Gospel therefore 
Jays stress upon the part played by all of these. And 
St. Matthew’s readers could appreciate every fulfil- 
ment of prophecy, and every touch of local colour, 
St. Mark offers to us the essential points: rejection 
and cruelty by His countrymen, rejection and eruelty 
over again by Rome, and the dignity, the elevation, the 
lofty silence and the dauntless testimony of his Lord. 
As we read, we are conscious of the weakness of His 
crafty foes, who are helpless and baffled, and have no 
resort except to abandon their charges and appeal to 
His own truthfulness to destroy Him. 

He shows us first the informal assembly before 
Caiaphas, whither Annas sent Him with that sufficient 
sign of his own judgment, the binding of His hands, 
and the first buffet, inflicted by an officer, upon His 
holy face. It was not yet daylight, and a formal 
assembly of the Sanhedrim was impossible. But what 
passed now was so complete a rehearsal of the tragedy, 
that the regular meeting could be disposed of in a 
single verse. 

There was confusion and distress among the con- 
spirators. It was not their intention to have arrested 
Jesus on the feast day, at the risk of an uproar 
among the people. But He had driven them to do so 
by the expulsion of their spy, who, if they delayed 
longer,*would be unable to guide their officers. And 
so they found themselves without evidence, and had 
to play the part of prosecutors when they ought to 
be impartial judges. There is something frightful in 
the spectacle of these chiefs of the religion of Jehovah 
suborning perjury as the way to murder; and it 
reminds =:s of the solemn truth, that no wickedness is 


Mark xiv. 53-65.] BEFORE CAIAPHAS. 409 


so perfect and heartless as that upon which sacred 
influences have long been vainly operating, no cor- 
ruption so hateful as that of a dead religion. Presently 
they would cause the name of God to be blasphemed 
among the heathen, by bribing the Roman guards to 
lie about the corpse. And the heart of Jesus was 
tried by the disgraceful spectacle of many false 
witnesses, found in turn and paraded against Him, 
but unable to agree upon any consistent charge, while 
yet the shameless proceedings were not discontinued. 
At the last stood up witnesses to pervert what He had 
spoken at the first cleansing of the temple, which the 
second cleansing had so lately recalled to mind. They 
represented Him as saying, “I am able to destroy this 
temple made with hands,’—or perhaps, “I will 
destroy ” it, for their testimony varied on this grave 
point—“ and in three days I will build another made 
without hands.” It was for blaspheming the Holy 
Place that Stephen died, and the charge was a grave 
one ; but His words were impudently manipulated to 
justify it. There had been no proposal to substitute 
a different temple, and no mention of the temple made 
with hands. Nor had Jesus ever proposed to destroy 
anything. He had spoken of their destroying the 
Temple of His Body, and in the use they made of 
the prediction they fulfilled it. 

As we read of these repeated failures. before a tribunal 
SO unjust, we are led to suppose that opposition must 
have sprung up to disconcert them; we remember the 
councillor of honourable estate, who had not consented 
to their counsel and deed, and we think, What if, even 
in that hour of evil, one voice was uplifted for right- 
eousness ? What if Joseph confessed Him in the 
conclave, like the penitent thief upon the cross? 


410 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 

And now the high priest, enraged and alarmed by 
imminent failure, rises in the midst, and in the face of 
all law cross-questions the prisoner, Answerest Thou 
nothing? What is it which these witness against 
Thee? But Jesus will not become their accomplice ; 
He maintains the silence which contrasts so nobly with 
their excitement, which at once sees through their 
schemes and leaves them to fall asunder. And the 
urgency of the occasion, since hesitation now will give 
the city time to rise, drives them to a desperate ex- 
pedient. Without discussion of His claims, without 
considering that some day there must be some Messiah, 
(else what is their faith and who are they ?) they will 
treat it as blasphemous and a capital offence simply 
to claim that title. Caiaphas adjures Him by their 
common God to answer, Art thou the Christ, the Son 
of the Blessed? So then they were not utterly ignor- 
ant of the higher nature of the Son of David: they 
remembered the words, Thou art My Son, this day 
have 1 begotten Thee. But the only use they ever 
made of their knowledge was to heighten to the utter- 
most the Messianic dignity which they would make it 
death to claim. And the prisoner knew well the con- 
sequences of replying. But He had come into the 
world to bear witness to the truth, and this was the 
central truth of all. “And Jesus said, 1 am.” Now 
Renan tells us that He was the greatest religious 
genius who ever lived, or probably ever shall live. 
Mill tells us that religion cannot be said to have made 
a bad choice in pitching on this Man as the ideal repre- 
sentative and guide of humanity. And Strauss thinks 
that we know enough of Him to assert that His con- 
sciousness was unclouded by the memory of any sin. 
Well then, if anything in the life of Jesus is beyond 





= 


Mark xiv. 53-65.] BEFORE CAIAPHAS. 4i? 





controversy, it is this, that the sinless Man, our ideal 
representative and guide, the greatest religious genius 
of the race, died for asserting upon oath that He was 
the Son of God. A good deal has been said lately, 
both wise and foolish, about Comparative Religion: is 
there anything to compare with this? Lunatics, with 
this example before their eyes, have conceived wild and 
dreadful infatuations. But these are the words of Him 
whose character has dominated nineteen centuries, 
and changed the history of the world. And they stand 
alone in the records of mankind. 

As Jesus spoke the fatal words, as malice and hatred 
lighted the faces of His wicked judges with a base and 
ignoble joy, what was His own thought? We know 
it by the warning that He added. They supposed 
themselves judges and irresponsible, but there should 
yet be another tribunal, with justice of a far different 
kind, and there they should occupy another place. 
For all that was passing before His eyes, so false, 
hypocritical and murderous, there was no lasting 
victory, no impunity, no escape: “ Ye shall see the 
Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and 
coming with the clouds of heaven.” Therefore His 
apostle Peter tells us that in this hour, when He was 
reviled and reviled not again, ‘‘ He committed Himself 
to Him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter ii. 23). 

He had now quoted that great vision in which the 
prophet Daniel saw Him brought near unto the 
Ancient of Days, and invested with an everlasting 
dominion (Dan. vii. 13,14.) But St. Matthew adds one 
memorable word. He did not warn them, and He was 
not Himself sustained, only by the mention of a far-oit 
judgment: He said they should behold Him thus 
“henceforth.” And that very day they saw the veil of 


412 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





their temple rent, felt the world convulsed, and re- 
membered in their terror that He had foretold His own 
death and His resurrection, against which they had 
still to guard. And in the open sepulchre, and the 
supernatural vision told them by its keepers, in great 
and notable miracles wrought by the name of Jesus, in 
the desertion of a great multitude even of priests, and 
their own fear to be found fighting against God, in all 
this the rise of that new power was thenceforth plainly 
visible, which was presently to bury them and their 
children under the ruins of their temple and their 
palaces. But for the moment the high-priest was only 
relieved; and he proceeded, rending his clothes, to 
- announce his judgment, before consulting the court, who 
had no further need of witnesses, and were quite content 
to become formally the accusers before themselves. The 
sentence of this irregular and informal court was now 
pronounced, to fit them for bearing part, at sunrise, in 
what should be an unbiassed trial; and while they 
awaited the dawn Jesus was abandoned to the brutality 
of their servants, one of whom He had healed that very 
night. They spat on the Lord of Glory. They covered 
His face, an act which was the symbol of a death sen- 
tence (Esther vii. 8), and then they buffeted Him, and 
invited Him to prophesy who smote Him. And the 
officers “ received Him” with blows. 

What was the meaning of this outburst of savage 
cruelty of men whom Jesus had never wronged, and 
some of whose friends must have shared His super- 
human gilts of love? Partly it was the instinct of low 
natures to trample on the fallen, and partly the result 
of partizanship. For these servants of the priests must 
have seen many evidences of the hate and dread with 
which their masters regarded Jesus. But there was 


Mark xiv. 66-72.) TEE FALL OF PETER, 413 








doubtless another motive. Not without fear, we may 
be certain, had they gone forth to arrest at midnight the 
Personage of whom so many miraculous tales were 
universally believed. They must have remembered 
the captains of fifty whom Elijah consumed with fire. 
And in fact there was a moment when they all fell 
prostrate before His majestic presence. But now their 
terror was at an end: He was helplessin their hands; 
and they revenged their fears upon the Author of them. 

Thus Jesus suffered shame to make us partakers of 
His glory; and the veil of death covered His head, 
that He might destroy the face of the covering cast 
over all peoples, and the veil that was spread over all 
nations. And even in this moment of bitterest outrage 
He remembered and rescued a soul in the extreme of 
jeopardy, for it was now that the Lord turned and 
looked upon Peter. 


THE FALL OF PETER, 


** And as Peter was beneath in the court, there cometh one of the 
maids of the high priest ; and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked 
upon him, and saith, Thou also wast with the Nazarene, eve Jesus. 
But he denied, saying, I neither know, nor understand what thou 
sayest : and he went out into the porch ; and fhe cock crew. And the 
maid saw him, and began again to say to them that stood by, This is 
one of them. But he again denied it. And after a little while again 
they that stood by said to Peter, Of a truth thou art ove of them ; for 
thou art a Galilean. But he began to curse, and to swear, I know not 
this man of whom ye speak. And straightway the second time the 
cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word, how that Jesus said 
unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And 
when he thought thereon, he wept ””—Mark xiv. 66-72 (R.V.). 


Tre fall of Peter has called forth the easy scorn of 
multitudes who never ran any risk for Christ. But if 
he had been a coward, and his denial a dastardly 


414 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK, 





weakness, it would not be a warning for the whole 
Church, but only for feeble natures. Whereas the 
lesson which it proclaims is this deep and solemn one, 
that no natural endowments can bear the strain of the 
spiritual life. Peter had dared to smite when only two 
swords were forthcoming against the band of Roman 
soldiers and the multitude from the chief priests. After 
the panic in which all forsook Jesus, and so fulfilled 
the prediction “ ye shall leave Me alone,” none ventured 
so far as Peter. John indeed accompanied him; but 
John ran little risk, he had influence and was therefore 
left unassailed, whereas Peter was friendless and a 
mark for all men, and had made himself conspicuous 
in the garden. Of those who declaim about his want 
of courage few indeed would have dared so much. 
And whoever misunderstands him, Jesus did not. He 
said to him, “ Satan hath desired to have you (all) that 
he may sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for thee 
(especially) that thy strength fail not.” Around him 
the fiercest of the struggle was to rage, as around some 
point of vantage on a battlefield ; and it was he, when 
once he had turned again, who should stablish his 
brethren (Luke xxii. 31, 32). 

God forbid thatwwe should speak one light or scornful 
word of this great apostle! God grant us, if our foot- 
steps slip, the heart to weep such tears as his. 

Peter was a loving, brave and loyal man. But the 
circumstances were not such as human bravery could 
deal with. Resistance, which would have kindled his 
spirit, had been forbidden to him, and was now im- 
possible. The public was shut out, and he was practi- 
cally alone among his enemies. He had come ‘to see 
the end,” and it was a miserable sight that he beheld, 
Jesus was passive, silent, insulted: His foes fierce, 


Mark xiv. 66-72.) Z//E FALL OF PETER.  4is 


unscrupulous and confident. And Peter was more 
and more conscious of being alone, in peril, and utterly 
without resource. Moreover sleeplessness and misery 
lead to physical languor and cold,* and as the officers 
had kindled a fire, he was drawn thither, like a moth, 
by the double wish to avoid isolation and to warm 
himself. In thus seeking to pass for one of the crowd, 
he showed himself ashamed of Jesus, and incurred the 
menaced penalty, ‘of him shall the Son of man be 
ashamed, when He cometh.” And the method of self- 
concealment which he adopted only showed his face, 
strongly illuminated, as St. Mark tells us, by the flame. 

If now we ask for the secret of his failing resolution, 
we can trace the disease far back. It was self-confi- 
dence. He reckoned himself the one to walk upon the 
waters. He could not be silent on the holy mount, 
when Jesus held high communion with the inhabitants 
of heaven. He rebuked the Lord for dark forebodings. 
When Jesus would wash his feet, although expressly 
told that he should understand the act hereafter, he 
rejoined, Thou shalt never wash my feet, and was 
only sobered by the peremptory announcement that 
further rebellion would involve rejection. He was sure 
that if all the rest were to deny Jesus, he never should 
deny Him. Inthe garden he slept, because he failed 
to pray and watch. And then he did not wait to be 
directed, but strove to fight the battle of Jesus with the 
weapons of the flesh. Therefore he forsook Him and 
fled. And the consequences of that hasty blow were 
heavy upon him now. It marked him for the atten- 
tion of the servants: it drove him to merge himscli 
in the crowd. But his bearing was too suspicious to 


* « By the fire the children sit 
Cold in that atmosphere of death.”"—/z Aemoriam, xx, 


416 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





“enable him to escape unquestioned. The first assault 
came very naturally, from the maid who kept the door, 
and had therefore seen him with John. He denied 
indeed, but with hesitation, not so much affirming that 
the charge was false as that he could not understand it. 
And thereupon he changed his place, either to escape 
notice or through mental disquietude ; but as he went 
into the porch the cock crew. The girl however was 
not to be shaken off: she pointed him out to others, 
and since he had forsaken the only solid ground, he 
now denied the charge angrily and roundly. An hour 
passed, such an hour of shame, perplexity and guilt, as 
he had never known, and then there came a still more 
dangerous attack. They had detected his Galilean 
accent, while he strove to pass for one of them. And 
a kinsman of Malchus used words as threatening as 
were possible without enabling a miracle to be proved, 
since the wound had vanished: “ Did I myself not see 
thee in the garden with Him?” Whereupon, to prove 
that his speech had nothing to do with Jesus, he began 
to curse and swear, saying, I know not the man. And 
the cock crew a second time, and Peter remembered 
the warning of his Lord, which then sounded so harsh, 
but now proved to be the means of his salvation. And 
the eyes of his Master, full of sorrow and resolution, 
fell on him. And he knew that he had added a bitter 
paug to the sufferings of the Blessed One. And the 
crowd and his own danger were forgotten, and he went 
out and wept. 

It was for Judas to strive desperately to put himself 
right with man: the sorrow of Peter was for himself 
and God to know. 

What lessons ar> we taught by this most natural and 
humbling story ? That he who thinketh he standeth 


Mark xiv. 66-72.] THE FALL OF PETER. 417 


must take heed lest he fall.- That we are in most danger 
when self-confident, and only strong when we are weak. 
That the beginning of sin is like the letting out of 
water. That Jesus does not give us up when we cast 
ourselves away, but as long as a pulse of love survives, 
or a spark of loyalty, He will appeal to that by many a 
subtle suggestion of memory and of providence, to re- 
call His wanderer to Himself. 

And surely we learn by the fall of this great and 
good apostle to restore the fallen in the spirit of meek- 
ness, considering ourselves lest we also be tempted, re= 
membering also that to Peter, Jesus sent the first tidings 
of His resurrection, and that the message found him 
in company with John, and therefore in the house with 
Mary. What might have been the issue of his an- 
guish if these holy ones had cast Him off ? 


CHAPTER XV. 


PILATE. 


“ And straightway in the morning the chief priests with the elders and 
scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound Jesus, 
and carried Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate.” 

“*, . » And they lead Him out to crucify Him.” —MARK xy. I-20 
(R.V.). 


AA morning came the formal assembly, which 
St. Mark dismisses in a single verse. It was 
indeed a disgraceful mockery. Before the trial began 
its members had prejudged the case, passed sentence 
by anticipation, and abandoned Jesus, as one condemned, 
to the brutality of their servants. And now the spec- 
tacle of a prisoner outraged and maltreated moves no 
indignation in their hearts. 

Let us, for whom His sufferings were endured, reflect 
upon the strain and anguish of all these repeated ex- 
aminations, these foregone conclusions gravely adopted 
in the name of justice, these exhibitions of greed for 
blood. Among the “unknown sufferings” by which 
the Eastern Church invokes her Lord, surely not the 
least was His outraged moral sense. 

As the issue of it all, they led Him away to Pilate, 
meaning, by the weight of such an accusing array, to 
overpower any possible scruples of the governor, but in 
fact fulfilling His words, “ they shall deliver Him unto 
the Gentiles.” And the first question recorded by St. 
Mark expresses the intense surprise of Pilate. ‘ Thou,” 


Mark xv. 1-20.] PILATE, 419 
so meek, so unlike the numberless conspirators that I 
have tried,—or perhaps, ‘‘ Thou,” Whom no sympathis- 
ing multitude sustains, and for Whose death the disloyal 
priesthood thirsts, ‘‘ Art Zhou the King of the Jews?” 
We know howcarefully Jesus disentangled His claim from 
the political associations which the high priests intended 
that it should suggest, how the King of Truth would 
not exaggerate any more than understate the case, and 
explained that His kingdom was not of this world, that 
His servants did not fight, that His royal function was 
to uphold the truth, not to expel conquerors. The eyes 
of a practised Roman governor saw through the accusa- 
tion very clearly. Before him, Jesus was accused of 
sedition, but that was a transparent pretext; Jews did 
not hate Him for enmity to Rome: He was a rival 
teacher and a successful one, and for envy they had 
delivered Him. So far all was well. Pilate investi- 
gated the charge, arrived at the correct judgment, and 
it only remained that he should release the innocent 
man. In reaching this conclusion Jesus had given him 
the most prudent and skilful help, but as soon as the 
facts became clear, He resumed His impressive and 
mysterious silence. Thus, before each of his judges in 
turn, Jesus avowed Himself the Messiah and then held 
His peace. It was an awful silence, which would not 
give that which was holy to the dogs, nor profane the 
truth by unavailing protests or controversies. It was, 
however, a silence only possible to an exalted nature 
full of self-control, since the words actually spoken 
redeem it from any suspicion or stain of sullenness. 
It is the conscience of Pilate which must henceforth 
speak. The Romans were the lawgivers of the ancient 
world, and a few years earlier their greatest pcet had 
boasted that their mission was to spare the helpless. 


420 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





and to crush the proud. In no man was an act of 
deliberate injustice, of complaisance to the powerful at 
the cost of the good, more unpardonable than in a 
leader of that splendid race, whose laws are still the 
favourite study of those who frame and administer our 
own. And the conscience of Pilate struggled hard, 
aided by superstitious fear. The very silence of Jesus 
amid many charges, by none of which His accusers 
would stand or fall, excited the wonder of His judge. 
His wife’s dream aided the effect. And he was still 
more afraid when he heard that this strange and elevated 
Personage, so unlike any other prisoner whom he had 
ever tried, laid claim to be Divine. Thus even in his 
desire to save Jesus, his motive was not pure, it was 
rather an instinct of self-preservation than a sense of 
justice. But there was danger on the other side as 
well ; since he had already incurred the imperial cen- 
sure, he could not without grave apprehensions contem- 
plate a fresh complaint, and would certainly be ruined 
if he were accused of releasing a conspirator against 
Czsar. And accordingly he stooped to mean and 
crooked ways, he lost hold of the only clue in the per- 
plexing labyrinth of expediencies, which is principle, 
and his name in the creed of Christendom is spoken 
with a shudder—“ crucified under Pontius Pilate !” 

It was the time for him to release a prisoner to them, 
according to an obscure custom, which some suppose 
to have sprung from the release of one of the two 
sacrificial goats, and others from the fact that they now 
celebrated their own deliverance from Egypt. At 
this moment the people began to demand their usual 
indulgence, and an evil hope arose in the heart of 
Pilate. They would surely welcome One who was in 
danger as a patriot: he would himself make the offer; 


Naark: xv. 1-20.] PILATE. 421 





and he would put it in this tempting form, “ Will ye 
that I release unto you the King of the Jews?” Thus 
would the enmity of the priests be gratified, since 
Jesus would henceforth be a condemned culprit, and 
owe His life to their intercession with the foreigner. 
But the proposal was a surrender. The life of Jesus 
had not been forfeited; and when it was placed at 
their discretion, it was already lawlessly taken away. 
Moreover, when the offer was rejected, Jesus was in 
the place of a culprit who should not be released. To 
the priests, nevertheless, it was a dangerous proposal, 
and they needed to stir up ‘the people, or perhaps 
Barabbas would not have been preferred. 

Instigated by their natural guides, their religious 
teachers, the Jews made the tremendous choice, which 
has ever since been heavy on their heads and on their 
children’s. Yet if ever an error could be excused by 
the plea of authority, and the duty of submission to 
constituted leaders, it was this error. They followed 
men who sat in Moses’ seat, and who were thus entitled, 
according to Jesus Himself, to be obeyed. Yet that 
authority has not relieved the Hebrew nation from the 
wrath which came upon them to the uttermost. The 
salvation they desired was not moral elevation or 
spiritual life, and so Jesus had nothing to bestow upon 
them ; they refused the Holy One and the Just. What 
they wanted was the world, the place which Rome held, 
and which they fondly hoped was yet to be their own. 
Even to have failed in the pursuit of this was better 
than to have the words of everlasting life, and so the 
name of Barabbas was enough to secure the rejection 
of Christ. It would almost seem that Pilate was ready ‘ 
to release both, if that would satisfy them, for he asks, 
in hesitation and perplexity, “‘What shall I do then 


422 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 
with Him Whom ye call the King of the Jews?” Surely 
in their excitement for an insurgent, that title, given 
by themselves, will awake their pity. But again and 
again, like the howl of wolves, resounds their ferocious 
ery, Crucify Him, crucify Him. 

The irony of Providence is known to every student 
of history, but it never was so manifest as here. Under 
the pressure of circumstances upon men whom principle 
has not made firm, we find a Roman governor striving to 
kindle every disloyal passion of his subjects, on behalf 
of the King of the Jews,—appealing to men whom he 
hated and despised, and whose charges have proved 
empty as chaff, to say, What evil has He done? and 
even to tell him, on his judgment throne, what he shall 
do with their King; we find the men who accused Jesus 
of stirring up the people to sedition, now shamelessly 
agitating for the release of a red-handed insurgent ; 
forced moreover to accept the responsibility which they 
would fain have devolved on Pilate, and themselves to 
pronounce the hateful sentence of crucifixion, unknown 
to their law, but for which they had secretly intrigued ; 
and we find the multitude fiercely clamouring for a 
defeated champion of brute force, whose weapon has 
snapped in his hands, who has led his followers to 
the cross, and from whom there is no more to hope, 
What satire upon their hope of a temporal Messiah 
could be more bitter than their own cry, “ We have no 
king but Caesar” ? And what satire upon this profession 
more destructive than their choice of Barabbas and 
refusal of Christ? And all the while, Jesus looks on 
in silence, carrying out His mournful but effectual plan, 
the true Master of the movements which design to 
crush Him, and which He has foretold. As He ever 
receives gifts for the rebellious, and is the Saviour of 





Mark xv. I-20.] PILATE. 423 


all men, though especially of them that believe, so now 
His passion, which retrieved the erring soul of Peter, 
and won the penitent thief, rescues Barabbas from the 
cross. His suffering was made visibly vicarious. 

One is tempted to pity the feeble judge, the only 
person who is known to have attempted to rescue Jesus, 
beset by his old faults, which will make an impeachment 
fatal, wishing better than he dares to act, hesitating, 
sinking inch by inch, and like a bird with broken wing. 
No accomplice in this frightful crime is so suggestive 
of warning to hearts not entirely hardened. 

But pity is lost in sterner emotion as we remember 
that this wicked governor, having borne witness to the 
perfect innocence of Jesus, was content, in order to 
save himself from danger, to watch the Blessed One 
enduring all the horrors of a Roman scourging, and 
then to yield Him up to die. 

It is now the unmitigated cruelty of ancient pagan- 
ism which has closed its hand upon our Lord. When 
the soldiers led Him away within the court, He was 
lost to His nation, which had renounced Him. It is 
upon this utter alienation, even more than the locality 
where the cross was fixed, that the Epistle’to the 
Hebrews turns our attention, when it reminds us that 
“the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought 
into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for 
sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus 
also, that He might sanctify the people through His 
own blood, suffered without the gate.” The physical 
exclusion, the material parallel points to something 
deeper, for the inference is that of estrangement. 
Those who serve the tabernacle cannot eat of our altar. 
Let us go forth unto Him, bearing His reproach. 
(Heb. xii. 10-13). 


424 GOSTEL OF ST, MARK. 








Renounced by Israel, and about to become a curse 
under the law, He has now to suffer the cruelty of 
wantonness, as He has already endured the cruelty of 
hatred and fear. Now, more than ever perhaps, He 
looks for pity and there is no man. None responded 
to the deep appeal of the eyes which had never seen 
misery without relieving it. The contempt of the 
strong for the weak and suffering, of coarse natures for 
sensitive ones, of Romans for Jews, all these were 
blended with bitter scorn of the Jewish expectation that 
some day Rome shall bow before a Hebrew conqueror, 
in the mockery which Jesus now underwent, when they 
clad Him in such cast-off purple as the Palace yielded, 
thrust a reed into His pinioned hand, crowned Him 
with thorns, beat these into His holy head with the 
sceptre they had offered Him, and then proceeded to 
render the homage of their nation to the Messiah of 
Jewish hopes. It may have been this mockery which 
suggested to Pilate the inscription for the cross. But 
where is the mockery now? In crowning Him King 
of sufferings, and Royal among those who weep, they 
secured to Him the adherence of all hearts. Christ 
was made perfect by the things which He suffered ; 
and it was not only in spite of insult and anguish but 
by means of them that He drew all men unto Him. 


CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 


‘* And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from 
the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go qwét# them, that 
he might bear Hiscross. And they bring [im unto the place Golgotha, 
which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And they offered 
Him wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not. And they 
crucify Him, and part His garments among them, casting lots upon 
them, what each should take. And it was the third hour. and they 
crucified Him, And the superscription of His accusation was written 


Blark xv. 21-32.] CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 425 





over, THE KING OF THE JEWs. And with Him they crucify two 
robbers; one on His right hand, and one on His left. And they that 
passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha! Thou 
that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself, 
and come down from the cross. In like manner also the chief priests 
mocking A’z7z among themselves with the scribes said, He saved others ; 
Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now 
come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. And 
they that were crucified with Him reproached Him.”—MakkK xv. 21--32 
(R.V.). 

At last the preparations were complete and the interval 
of mental agony was over. They led Him away to 
crucify Him. And upon the road an event of mournful 
interest took place. It was the custom to lay the two 
arms of the cross upon the doomed man, fastening 
them together at such an angle as to pass behind His 
neck, while his hands were bound to the ends in front. 
And thus it was that Jesus went forth bearing His 
cross. Did He think of this when He bade us take 
His yoke upon us? Did He wait for events to explain 
the words, by making it visibly one and the same to 
take His yoke and to take up our cross and follow 
Him ? 

On the road, however, they forced a reluctant stranger 
to go with them that he might. bear the cross. The 
traditional reason is that our Redeemer’s strength gave 
way, and it became physically impossible for Him to 
proceed; but this is challenged upon the ground that 
to fail would have been unworthy of our Lord, and 
would mar the perfection of His example. How so, 
when the failure was a real one? Is there no fitness 
in the belief that He who was tempted in all points like 
as we are, endured this hardness also, of struggling 
with the impossible demands of human cruelty, the 
spirit indeed willing but the flesh weak? It is not 
easy to believe that any other reason than manifest 





426 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 


inability, would have induced his persecutors to spare 
Him one drop of bitterness, one throb of pain. The 
noblest and most delicately balanced frame, like all 
other exquisite machines, is not capable of the rudest 
strain ; and we know that Jesus had once sat wearied 
by the well, while the hardy fishers went into the town, 
and returned with bread. And this night our gentle 
Master had endured what no common victim knew. 
Long before the scourging, or even the buffeting began, 
His spiritual exhaustion had needed that an angel from 
heaven should strengthen Him. And the utmost pos- 
sibility of exertion was now reached: the spot where 
they met Simon of Cyrene marks this melancholy limit; 
and suffering henceforth must be purely passive. 

We cannot assert with confidence that Simon and 
his family were saved by this event. The coercion put 
upon him, the fact that he was seized and “impressed” 
into the service, already seems to indicate sympathy with 
Jesus. And we are fain to believe that he who received 
the honour, so strange and sad and sacred, the unique 
privilege of lifting some little of the crushing burden 
of the Saviour, was not utterly ignorant of what he did. 
We know at least that the names of his children, 
Alexander and Rufus, were familiar in the Church for 
which St. Mark was writing, and that in Rome a 
Rufus was chosen in the Lord, and his mother was 
like a mother to St. Paul (Rom. xvi. 13). With what 
feelings may they have recalled the story, “him they 
compelled to bear His cross.” 

They led Him to a place where the rounded summit 
of a knoll had its grim name from some resemblance to 
a human skull, and prepared the crosses there. 

It was the custom of the daughters of Jerusalem, 
who lamented Him as He went, to provide a stupefying 


Mark xv. 21-32.] CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 427 


draught for the sufferers of this atrocious cruelty. 
“And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but 
He received it not,” although that dreadful thirst, which 
was part of the suffering of crucifixion, had already 
begun, for He only refused when He had tasted it. 

In so doing He rebuked all who seek to drown 
sorrows or benumb the soul in wine, all who degrade 
and dull their sensibilities by physical excess or in- 
dulgence, all who would rather blind their intelligence 
than pay the sharp cost of its exercise. He did not 
condemn the use of anodynes, but the abuse of them. 
It is one thing to suspend the senses during an ope- 
ration, and quite another thing by one’s own choice 
to pass into eternity without consciousness enough to 
commit the soul into its Father’s hands. 

“And they crucify Him.” Let the words remain 
as the Evangelist left them, to tell their own story of 
human sin, and of Divine love which many waters could 
not quench, neither could the depths drown it. 

Only let us think in silence of all that those words 
convey. 

In the first sharpness of mortal anguish, Jesus saw 
His executioners sit down at ease, all unconscious 
of the dread meaning of what was passing by their 
side, to part His garments among them, and cast lots 
for the raiment which they had stripped from His sacred 
form. The Gospels are content thus to abandon those 
relics about which so many legends have been woven. 
But indeed all through these four wonderful narratives 
the self-restraint is perfect. When the Epistles touch 
upon the subject of the crucifixion they kindle into 
flame. When St. Peter soon afterwards referred to it, 
his indignation is beyond question, and Stephen called 
the rulers betrayers and murderers (Acts ii. 23, 24; 


428 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





iii 13, 14; vii. 51-53) but not one single syllable of 
complaint or comment mingles with the clear flow of 
narrative in the four Gospels. The truth is that the 
subject was too great, too fresh and vivid in their minds, 
to be adorned or enlarged upon. What comment of 
St. Mark, what mortal comment, could add to the weight 
of the words “they crucify Him” ? Men use no figures 
of speech when telling how their own beloved one died. 
But it was differently that the next age wrote about 
the crucifixion ; aud perhaps the lofty self-restraint of 
the Evangelists has never been attained again. 

St. Mark tells us that He was crucified at the third 
hour, whereas we read in St. John that it was “ about 
the sixth hour” when Pilate ascended the seat of 
judgment (xix. 14). It seems likely that St. John used 
the Roman reckoning, and his computation does not 
pretend to be exact; while we must remember that 
mental agitation conspired with the darkening of the 
sky, to render such an estimate as he offers even more 
than usually vague. 

It has been supposed that St. Mark’s “third hour” 
goes back to the scourging, which, as being a regular 
part of Roman crucifixion, he includes, although in- 
flicted in this case before the sentence. But it will 
prove quite as hard to reconcile this distribution of time 
with ‘the sixth hour” in St. John, while it is at variance 
with the context in which St. Mark asserts it. 

The small and bitter heart of Pilate keenly resented 
his defeat and the victory of the priests. Perhaps it 
was when his soldiers offered the scornful homage of 
Rome to Israel and her monarch, that he saw the way 
to a petty revenge. And all Jerusalem was scandalized 
by reading the ins:ription over a crucified malefactor’s 
head, The King of the Jews. 


Mark xy. 21-32.] CHRIST CRUCIFIED, 429 


It needs some reflection to perceive how sharp the 
taunt was. A few years ago they had a king, but 
the sceptre had departed from Judah; Rome had 
abolished him. It was their hope that soon a native 
king would for ever sweep away the foreigner from 
their fields. But here the Roman exhibited the fate of 
such a claim, and professed to inflict its horrors not 
upon one whom they disavowed, but upon their king 
indeed. We know how angrily and vainly they pro- 
tested; and again we seem to recognise the solemn 
irony of Providence. For this was their true King, 
and they, who resented the superscription, had fixed 
their Anointed there. 

All the more they would disconnect themselves from 
Him, and wreak their passion upon the helpless One 
whom they hated. The populace mocked Him openly: 
the chief priests, too cultivated to insult avowedly a 
dying man, mocked Him “among themselves,” speaking 
bitter words for Him to hear. The multitude repeated 
the false charge which had probably done much to 
inspire their sudden preference for Barabbas, “ Thou 
that destroyest the temple and buildest it again in three 
days, save Thyself and come down from the cross.” 

They little suspected that they were recalling words 
of consolation to His memory, reminding Him that all 
this suffering was foreseen, and how it was all to end, 
The chief priests spoke also a truth full of consolation, 
“He saved others, Himself He cannot save,” although 
it was no physical bar which forbade Him to accept 
their challenge. And when they flung at Him His 
favourite demand for faith, saying “Let the Christ, the 
King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we 
may see and believe” surely they reminded Him of the 
great multitude wo should not see, and yet should 


™~ 


430 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








believe, when He came back through the gates of 
death. 

Thus the words they spoke could not afflict Him. 
But what horror to the pure soul to behold these yawning 
abysses of malignity, these gulfs of pitiless hate. The 
affronts hurled at suffering and defeat by prosperous and 
exultant malice are especially Satanic. Many diseases 
inflict more physical pain than torturers ever invented, 
but they do not excite the same horror, because gentle 
ministries are there to charm away the despair which 
human hate and execration conjure up. 

To add to the insult of His disgraceful death, the 
Romans had crucified two robbers, doubtless from the 
band of Barabbas, one upon each side of Jesus. We 
know how this outrage led to the salvation of one of 
them, and refreshed the heavy laden soul of Jesus, 
oppressed by so much guilt and vileness, with the visible 
firstfruit of His passion, giving Him to see of the travail 
of His soul, by which He shall yet be satisfied. 

But in their first agony and despair, when all voices 
were unanimous against the Blessed One, and they 
too must needs find some outlet for their frenzy, they 
both reproached Him. Thus the circle of human 
wrong was rounded. 

The traitor, the deserters, the forsworn apostle, the 
perjured witnesses, the hypocritical pontiff professing 
horror at blasphemy while himself abjuring his national 
hope, the accomplices in a sham trial, the murderer 
of the Baptist and his men of war, the abject ruler 
who declared Him innocent yet gave Him up to die, 
the servile throng who waited on the priests, the 
soldiers of Herod and of Pilate, the pitiless crowd 
which clamoured for His blood, and they who mocked 
Him in His agony,—not one of them whom Jesus did 


Mark xv. 33-41] 7HE DEATH OF JESUS. 431 


not compassionate, whose cruelty had not power to 
wring His heart. Disciple and foeman, Roman and 
Jew, priest and soldier and judge, all had lifted up 
their voice against Him. And when the comrades of 
His passion joined the cry, the last ingredient of 
human cruelty was infused into the cup which James 
and John had once proposed to drink with Him. 


THE DEATH OF JESUS. 


*6 And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the 
whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried 
with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being inter- 
preted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And some of 
them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, He calleth 
Elijah. And one ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it ona 
reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let be; let us see whether Elijah 
cometh to take Him down. And Jesus uttered a loud voice, and gave 
up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the 
top tothe bottom. And when the centurion, which stood by over against 
Him, saw that He so gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was 
the Son of God. And there were also women beholding from afar: 
among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of 
James the less and of Joses, and Salome; who, when He was in 
Galilee, followed Him, and ministered unto Him ; and many other 
women which came up with Him unto Jerusalem.”—MarkK xv. 33-41 


(R.V.). 


TureEE hours of raging human passion, endured with 
Godlike patience, were succeeded by three hours of 
darkness, hushing mortal hatred into silence, and per- 
haps contributing to the penitence of the reviler at His 
side. It was a supernatural gloom, since an eclipse of 
the sun was impossible during the full moon of Pass- 
over. Shall we say that, as it shall be in the last days 
nature sympathized with humanity, and the angel e 
the sun hid his face from his suffering Lord ? 

Or was it the shadow of a still more dreadful eclipse, 


432 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








for now the eternal Father veiled His countenznce from 
the Son in whom He was well pleased ? 

In some true sense God forsook Him. And we have 
to seek for a meaning of this awful statement—inade- 
quate no doubt, for all our thoughts must come short of 
such a reality, but free from prevarication and evasion. 

It is wholly unsatisfactory to regard the verse as 
merely the heading of a psalm, cheerful for the most 
part, which Jesus inaudibly recited. Why was only 
this verse uttered aloud? How false an impression 
must have been produced upon the multitude, upon 
St. John, upon the penitent thief, if Jesus were suffering 
less than the extreme of spiritual anguish. Nay, we 
feel that never before can the verse have attained its 
fullest meaning, a meaning which no experience of 
David could more than dimly shadow forth, since we 
ask in our sorrows, Why have we forsaken God ? but 
Jesus said, Why hast Thou forsaken Me ? 

And this unconsciousness of any reason for desertion 
disproves the old notion that He felt Himself a sinner, 
and “suffered infinite remorse, as being the chief 
sinner in the universe, all the sins of mankind being 
His.” One who felt thus could neither have addressed 
God as “ My God,” nor asked why He was forsaken, 

Still less does it allow us to believe that the Father 
perfectly identified Jesus with sin, so as to be “ wroth” 
with Him, and even “to hate Him to the uttermost.” 
Such notions, the offspring of theories carried to a wild 
and irreverent extreme, when carefully examined im- 
pute to the Deity confusion of thought, a mistaking of 

he Holy One for a sinner or rather for the aggregate 
of sinners. But it is very different when we pass from 
the Divine consciousness to the bearing of God toward 
Christ our representative, to the outshining or eclipse 


i 


Mark xv. 33-41.) THE DEATH OF JESUS. 433 


of His favour. That this was overcast is manifest from 
the fact that Jesus everywhere else addresses Him as 
My Father, here only as My God. Even in the garden 
it was Abba Father, and the change indicates not in- 
deed estrangement of heart, but certainly remoteness. 
Thus we have the sense of desertion, combined with 
the assurance which once breathed in the words, O God, 
Thou art my God. 

Thus also it came to pass that He who never forfeited 
the most intimate communion and sunny smile of 
heaven, should yet give us an example at the last 
of that utmost struggle and sternest effort of the soul, 
which trusts without experience, without emotion, in 
the dark, because God is God, not because I am happy. 

But they who would empty the death of Jesus of its 
sacrificial import, and leave only the attraction and in- 
spiration of a sublime life and death, must answer the 
hard questions, How came God to forsake the Perfect 
One? Or, how came He to charge God with such 
desertion ? His follower, twice using this very word, 
could boast that he was cast down yet not forsaken, and 
that at his first trial all men forsook him, yet the Lord 
stood by him (2 Cor. iv. 9; 2 Tim. iv. 16,17). How 
came the disciple to be above his Master ? 

The only explanation is in His own word, that His 
life is a ransom in exchange for many (Mark x. 45). 
The chastisement of our peace, not the remorse of our 
guiltiness, was upon Him. No wonder that St. Mark, 
who turns aside from his narrative for no comment, 
no exposition, was yet careful to preserve this alone 
among the dying words of Christ. 

And the Father heard His Son. At that cry the mys- 
terious darkness passed away; and the soul of Jesus was 
relieved from its burden, so that He became conscious 

28 


434 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





of physical suffering ; and the mockery of the multitude 
was converted into awe. It seemed to them that His 
Eloi might indeed bring Elias, and the great and notable 
day, and they were willing to relieve the thirst which 
no stoical hardness forbade that gentlest of all sufferers 
to confess. Thereupon the anguish that redeemed the 
world was over; a loud voice told that exhaustion was 
not complete ; and yet Jesus “ gave up the ghost.” * 

Through the veil, that is to say His flesh, we have 
boldness to enter into the holy place; and now that 
He had opened the way, the veil of the temple was 
rent asunder by no mortal hand, but downward from 
the top. The way into the holiest was visibly thrown 
open, when sin was expiated, which had forfeited our 
right of access. 

And the centurion, seeing that His death itself was 
abnormal and miraculous, and accompanied with 
miraculous signs, said, Truly this was a righteous man. 
But such a confession could not rest there: if He was 
this, He was all He claimed to be; and the mockery of 
His enemies had betrayed the secret of their hate ;-He 
was the Son of God. 

“When the centurion saw” .. . “ There were also 
many women beholding.” Who can overlook the con- 
nection? Their gentle hearts were not to be utterly over- 
whelmed : as the centurion saw and drew his inference, 
so they beheld, and felt, however dimly, amid sorrows 
that benumb the mind, that still, even in such wreck 
and misery, God was not far from Jesus, 

When the Lord said, It is finished, there was not only 
an end of conscious anguish, but also of contempt and 


* The ingenious and plausible attempt to show that His death was 
caused by a physical rupture of the heart has one fatal weakness. 
Death came too late for this'; the severest pressure was already relieved, 


Mark xv, 33-41.) YHWE DEATH OF JESUS. 435 
insult. His body was not to see corruption, nor was a 
bone to be broken, nor should it remain in hostile hands. 

Respect for Jewish prejudice prevented the Romans 
from leaving it to moulder on the cross, and the 
appreaching Sabbath was not one to be polluted. And 
knowing this, Joseph of Arimathzea boldly went in tc 
Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. It was onl: 
secretly and in fear that he had been a disciple, but the 
deadly crisis had developed what was hidden, he had 
opposed the crime of his nation in their council, and in 
the hour of seeming overthrow he chose the good part. 
Boldly the timid one “ went in,” braving the scowls of 
the priesthood, defiling himself moreover, and forfeiting 
his share in the sacred feast, in hope to win the further 
defilement of contact with the dead. 

Pilate was careful to verify so rapid a death ; but when 
he was certain of the fact, ‘““he granted the corpse to 
Joseph,” as a worthless thing. His frivolity is expressed 
alike in the unusual verb* and substantive: he “ freely- 
bestowed,” he “ gave away” not ‘‘the body” as when 
Joseph spoke of it, but “the corpse,” the fallen thing, 
like a prostrated and uprooted tree that shall revive no 
more. Wonderful it is to reflect that God had entered 
into eternal union with what was thus given away to 
the only man of rank who cared to ask for it. Won- 
derful to think what opportunities of eternal gain men 
are content to lose; what priceless treasures are given 
away, or thrown away as worthless. Wonderful to 
imagine the feelings of Joseph in heaven to-day, as he 
gazes with gratitude and love upon the glorious Body 
which once, for a little, was consigned to his reverent care, 

St. John tells us that Nicodemus brought a hundred 
pound weight of myrrh and aloes, and they together 








* Je, in the New Testament, where it occurs but once besides, 


436 GOSFEL OF ST, MARK. 


_——— 





wrapped Him in these, in the linen which had been 
provided ; and Joseph laid Him in his own new tomb, 
undesecra‘ed by mortality. 

And there Jesus rested. His friends had no such 
hope as would prevent them from closing the door with 
a great stone. His enemies set a watch, and sealed 
the stone. The broad moon of Passover made the 
night as clear as the day, and the multitude of 
strangers, who thronged the city and its suburbs, ren- 
dered any attempt at robbery even more hopeless than 
at another season. 

What indeed could the trembling disciples of an 
executed pretender do with such an object as a dead 
body ? What could they hope from the possession of 
it? But if they did not steal it, if the moral glories of 
Christianity are not sprung from deliberate mendacity, 
why was the body not produced, to abash the wild 
dreams of their fanaticism? It was fearfully easy to 
identify. The scourging, the cross, and the spear, left 
no slight evidence behind, and the broken bones of 
the malefactors completed the absolute isolation of the 
sacred body of the Lord. 

The providence of God left no precaution unsupplied 
to satisfy honest and candid inquiry. It remained to 
be seen, would He leave Christ’s soul in Hades, or 
suffer His Holy One (such is the epithet applied to the 
body of Jesus) to see corruption ? 

Meantime, through what is called three days and 
nights—a space which touched, but only touched, the 
confines of a first and third day, as well as the Satur- 
day which intervened, Jesus shared the humiliation of 
common men, the divorce of soul and body. He slept 
as sleep the dead, but His soul was where He promised 
that the penitent should come, refreshed in Paradise. 


CHAPTER XVI 


CHRIST RISEN. 


** And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the 
mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and 
anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they come to 
the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were saying among them- 
selves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? 
and looking up, they see that the stone is rolled back: for it was ex- 
ceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man 
sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe, and they were amazed. 
And he saith unto them, Be not amazed ; ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, 
Which hath been crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold, the 
place where they laid Him! But go, tell His disciples and Peter, He 
goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto 
you. And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and 
astonishment had come upon them ; and they said nothing to any one; 
for they were afraid. Now when He was risen early on the first day of 
the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had 
cast out seven devils. She went and told them that had been with Him, 
as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that He was 
alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these things 
Tle was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, 
on their way into the country. And they went away and told it unto 
the rest : neither believed they them. And afterward He was mani- 
fested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and He upbraid- 
ed them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they 
believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And He 
said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the 
whole creation, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these signs shall 
follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast out devils; they 
shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they 
drink any deadty thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay 
hands on the sick, and they shail recover.” —Markk xvi. 1-18 (R.V.). 


438 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





HE Gospels were not written for the curious but 

for the devout. They are most silent therefore 
where myth and legend would be most garrulous, and 
it is instructive to seek, in the story of Jesus, for 
anything similar to the account of the Buddha's 
enlightenment under the Bo tree. We read nothing 
of the interval in Hades; nothing of the entry of His 
crowned and immortal body into the presence chamber 
of God; nothing of the resurrection. Did He awake 
alone? Was He waited upon by the hierarchy of 
heaven, who robed Him in raiment unknown to men ? 
We are only told what concerns mankind, the sufficient 
manifestation of Jesus to His disciples. 

And to harmonise the accounts a certain effort is 
necessary, because they tell of interviews with men and 
women who had to pass through all the vicissitudes 
of despair, suspense, rapturous incredulity, * and faith. 
Each of them contributes a portion of the tale. 

From St. John we learn that Mary Magdalene came 
early to the sepulchre, from St. Matthew that others 
were with her, from St. Mark that these women, dis- 
satisfied with the unskilful ministrations of men (and 
men whose rank knew nothing of such functions), had 
brought sweet spices to anoint Him Who was about to 
claim their adoration ; St. John tells how Mary, seeing 
the empty sepulchre, ran to tell Peter and John of its 
desecration ; the others, that in her absence an angel 
told the glad tidings to the women; St. Mark, that 
Mary was the first to whom Jesus Himself appeared. 
And thenceforth the narrative more easily falls into its 
place. 





* Can anything surpass that masterstroke of insight and descriptive 
power, ‘‘ they stili disbelieved for joy ” (Luke axiv. 41). 


Mark xvi. 1 18.] CHRIST RISEN. 439 





This confusion, however perplexing to thoughtless 
readers, is inevitable in the independent histories of 
such events, derived from the various parties who de- 
lighted to remember, each what had befallen himself. 

But even a genuine contradiction would avail nothing 
to refute the substantial fact. When the generals of 
Henry the Fourth strove to tell him what passed after 
he was wounded at Aumale, no two of them agreed in 
the course of events which gave them victory. Two 
armies beheld the battle of Waterloo, but who can tell 
when it began? At ten o'clock, said the Duke of 
Wellington. At half past eleven, said General Alava, 
who rode beside him. At twelve according to Napoleon 
and Drouet; and at one according to Ney. 

People who doubt the reality of the resurrection, 
because the harmony of the narratives is underneath 
the surface, do not deny these facts. They are part 
of history. Yet it is certain that the resurrection of 
Jesus colours the history of the world more powerfully 
to-day, than the events which are so much more recent. 

If Christ were not risen, how came these despairing 
men and women by their new hope, their energy, their 
success among the very men who slew Him? If Christ 
be not risen, how has the morality of mankind been 
raised ? Was it ever known that a falsehood exercised 
for ages a quickening and purifying power which no 
truth can rival ? 

From the ninth verse to the end of St. Mark’s account 
it is curiously difficult to decide on the true reading. 
And it must be said that the note in the Revised Version, 
however accurate, does not succeed in giving any notion 
of the strength of the case in favour of the remainder 
of the Gospel. It tells us that the two oldest maiu- 
scripts omit them, but we do not read that in one of 


440 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





these a space is left for the insertion of something, 
known by the scribe to be wanting there. Nor does it 
mention the twelve manuscripts of almost equal anti- 
quity in which they are contained, nor the early date 
at which they were quoted. 

The evidence appears to lean towards the belief 
that they were added in a later edition, or else torn off 
in an early copy from which some transcribers worked. 
But unbelief cannot gain anything by converting them 
into a separate testimony, of the very earliest antiquity, 
to events related in each of the other Gospels, 

And the uncertainty itself will be wholesome if it 
reminds us that saving faith is not to be reposed in 
niceties of criticism, but in a living Christ, the power 
and wisdom of God. Jesus blamed men for thinking 
that they had eternal life in their inspired Scriptures, 
and so refusing to come for life to Him, of Whom those 
Scriptures testified. Has sober criticism ever shaken 
for one hour that sacred function of Holy Writ ? 

What then is especially shown us in the closing 
words of St. Mark ? 

Readiness to requite even a spark of grace, and to 
bless with the first tidings of a risen Redeemer the 
love which sought only to embalm His corpse. Tender 
care for the fallen and disheartened, in the message 
sent especially to Peter. Immeasurable condescension, 
such as rested formerly, a Babe, in a peasant woman’s 
arms, and announced its Advent to shepherds, now ap- 
pearing first of all toa woman “out of whom He had 
cast seven devils.” 

A state of mind among the disciples, far indeed from 
that rapt and hysterical enthusiasm which men have 
fancied, ready to be whirled away in a vortex of reli- 
gious propagandism (and to whirl the whole world after 


Mark xvi. 1-18.] CHRIST RISEN. 441 
it), upon the impulse of dreams, hallucinations, voices 
mistaken on a misty shore, longings which begot con- 
victions. Jesus Hin self, and no second, no messenger 
from Jesus, inspired the zeal which kindled mankind. 
The disciples, mourning and weeping, found the glad 
tidings incredible, while Mary who had seen Him, 
believed. When two, as they walked, beheld Him 
in another shape, the rest remained incredulous, 
announcing indeed that He had actually risen and 
appeared unto Peter, yet so far from a true conviction 
that when He actually came to them, they supposed 
that they beheld a spirit (Luke xxiv. 34, 37). Yet He 
looked in the face those pale discouraged Galileans, 
and bade them go into all the world, bearing to the 
whole creation the issues of eternal life and death. 
And they went forth, and the power and intellect of 
the world are won. Whatever unbelievers think about 
individual souls, it is plain that the words of the 
Nazarene have proved true for communities and nations, 
He that believeth and is baptised has been saved, He 
that believeth not has been condemned. The nation 
and kingdom that has not served Christ has perished. 

Nor does any one pretend that the agents in this 
marvellous movement were insincere. If all this was 
a dream, it was a strange one surely, and demands to 
be explained. If it was otherwise, no doubt the finger 
of God has come unto us, 


442 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





THE ASCENSION, 


**So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken unto them, was 
received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And 
they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with 
them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.”— 
MARK xvi. 19-20 (R.V.) 


WE have reached the close of the great Gospel of the 
energies of Jesus, His toils, His manner, His searching 
gaze, His noble indignation, His love of children, the 
consuming zeal by virtue of which He was not more 
truly the Lamb of God than the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah. St. Mark has just recorded how He bade His 
followers carry on His work, defying the serpents of 
the world, and renewing the plague-stricken race of 
Adam. In what strength did they fulfil this commis- 
sion? How did they fare without the Master? And 
what is St. Mark’s view of the Ascension ? 

Here, as all through the Gospel, minor points are 
neglected. Details are only valued when they carry 
some aid for the special design of the Evangelist, who 
presses to the core of his subject at once and boldly. 
As he omitted the bribes with which Satan tempted 
Jesus, and cared not for the testimony of the Baptist 
when the voice of God was about to peal from heaven 
over the Jordan, as on the holy mount he told not 
the subject of which Moses and Elijah spoke, but how 
Jesus Himself predicted His death to His disciples, so 
now He is silent about the mountain slope, the final 
benediction, the cloud which withdrew Him from their 
sight and the angels who sent back the dazed apostles 
to their homes and their duties. It is not caprice nor 
haste that omits so much interesting information. His 
mind is fixed on a few central thoughts ; what concerns 


Mark xvi. 19, 20.] THE ASCENSION. 443 


him is to link the mighty story of the life and death of 
Jesus with these great facts, that He was received up 
into Heaven, that He there sat down upon the right 
hand of God, and that His disciples were never for- 
saken of Him at all, but proved, by the miraculous 
spread of the early Church, that His power was among 
them still. St. Mark does not record the promise, but 
he asserts the fact that Christ was with them all the 
days. There is indeed a connection between his two 
closing verses, subtle and hard to render into English, 
and yet real, which suggests the notion of balance, of 
relation between the two movements, the ascent of 
Jesus, and the evangelisation of the world, such as 
exists, for example, between detachments of an army 
co-operating for a common end, so that our Lord, for 
His part, ascended, while the disciples, for their pzrt, 
went forth and found Him with them still. 

But the link is plainer which binds the Ascension to 
His previous story of suffering and conflict. It was 
“then,” and “after He had spoken unto them,” that 
“the Lord Jesus was received up.” In truth His 
ascension was but the carrying forward to completion 
of His resurrection, which was not a return to the poor 
conditions of our mortal life, but an entrance into glory, 
only arrested in its progress until He should have quite 
convinced His followers that “it is I indeed,” and made 
them understand that “ thus it is written that the Christ 
should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third 
day,” and filled them with holy shame for their unbelief, 
and with courage for their future course, so strange, so 
weary, so sublime. 

There is something remarkable in the words, “He 
was received up into heaven.” We habitually speak 
of Him as ascending, but Scripture more frequently 


444 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 








declares that He was the subject of the action of 
another, and was taken up. St. Luke tells us that, 
“while they worshipped, He was carried up into 
heaven,” and again “He was received up.... He 
was taken up” (Luke xxiv. 51; Acts i. 2,9). Physical 
interference is not implied: no angels bore Him aloft; 
and the narratives make it clear that His glorious Body, 
obedient to its new mysterious nature, arose unaided. 
But the decision to depart, and the choice of a time, 
came not from Him: He did not go, but was taken. 
Never hitherto had He glorified Himself. He had 
taught His disciples to be contented in the lowest room 
until the Master of the house should bid them come up 
higher. And so, when His own supreme victory is 
won, and heaven held its breath expectant and aston- 
ished, the conquering Lord was content to walk with 
peasants by the Lake of Galilee and on the slopes of 
Olivet until the appointed time. What a rebuke to us 
who chafe and fret if the recognition of our petty merits 
be postponed. 

“He was received up into heaven!” What sublime 
mysteries are covered by that simple phrase. It was 
He who taught us to make, even of the mammon of 
unrighteousness, friends who shall welcome us, when 
mammon fails and ali things mortal have deserted us, 
into everlasting habitations. With what different greet- 
ings, then, do men enter the City of God. Some con- 
verts of the death bed perhaps there are, who scarcely 
make their way to heaven, alone, unhailed by one 
whom they saved or comforted, and like a vessel which 
struggles into port, with rent cordage and tattered sails, 
only not a wreck. Others, who aided some few, spar 
ing a little of their means and energies, are greeted and 
blessed by a scanty group. But even our chieftains and 


Mark xvi. 19, 20.] THE ASCENSION. 445 








leaders, the martyrs, sages and philanthropists whose 
names brighten the annals of the Church, what is their 
influence, and how few have they reached, compared 
with that great yiultitude whom none can number, ot 
all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, who 
cry with a loud voice, Salvation unto our God who 
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Through 
Him it pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto 
Himself, through Him, whether things upon the earth 
or things in the heavens. And surely the supreme 
hour in the history of the universe was when, in flesh, 
the sore stricken but now the all-conquering Christ re- 
entered His native heaven. 

And He sat down at the right hand of God. The 
expression is, beyond all controversy, borrowed from 
that great Psalm which begins by saying, ‘“‘The Lord 
said unto my Lord, Sit thou at My right hand,” and 
which presently makes the announcement never 
revealed until then, ‘‘ Thou art a Priest for ever after 
the order of Melchizedec” (Ps. cx. I, 4). It is there- 
fore an anticipation of the argument for the royal 
Priesthood of Jesus which is developed in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews. Now priesthood is a human function: 
every high priest is chosen from among men. And 
the Ascension proclaims to us, not the Divinity of the 
Eternal Word but the glorification of “the Lord 
Jesus ;” not the omnipotence of God the Son, but that 
all power is committed unto Him Who is not ashamed 
to call us brethren, that His human hands wield the 
sceptre as once they held the reed, and the brows then 
insulted and torn with thorns are now crowned with 
many crowns. In the overthrow of Satan He won 
all, and infinitely more than all, of that vast bribe 
which Satan once offered for His homage, and the 


446 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK. 





angels for ever worship Him who would not for a 
moment bend His knee to evil. 

Now since He conquered not for Himself but as 
Captain of our Salvation, the Ascension also proclaims 
the issue of all the holy suffering, all the baffled efforts, 
all the cross-bearing of all who follow Christ. 

His High Priesthood is with authority. “ Every 
high priest standeth,” but He has for ever sat down 
on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the 
heavens, a Priest sitting upon His throne (Heb. viii. 1; 
Zech. vi. 13). And therefore it is His office, Who 
pleads for us and represents us, Himself to govern 
our destinies. No wonder that His early followers, 
with minds which He had opened to understand the 
Scriptures, were mighty to cast down strongholds. 
Against tribulation and anguish and persecution and 
famine and nakedness and peril and sword they were 
more than conquerors through Him. For He worked 
with them and confirmed His word with signs. And 
we have seen that He works with His people still, and 
still confirms His gospel, only withdrawing signs of 
one order as those of another kind are multiplied. 
Wherever they wage a faithful battle, He gives them 
victory. Whenever they cry to Him in anguish, the 
form of the Son of God is with them in the furnace, 
and the smell of fire does not pass upon them. Where 
they come, the desert blossoms as a rose; and where 
they are received, the serpents of life no longer sting, 
its fevers grow cool, and the demons which rend it are 
cast out, 


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The Gospel According to St. Mark 





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